Kazan: Electronics, Music, Light Conference

Zorin (Moscow), Bulat Galeyev (Kazan) and Steven Martin (U.S.A.) provided different views on the com­ plex history of both the inventor's life and his inventions. But the most interesting feature of the conference was, in my opinion, the opportunity to hear and see several theremin players at once. The con­ servatory's Rachmaninoff Hall was the site of an extensive concert program, which combined classical, popular and modern experimental styles, and fea­ tured performers such as Masami Takeuchi from Japan, Olga Milanich from Moscow, and me. Reference 1. "Leon Theremin, Pioneer of Art," was a special section published in Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 6 (1996) and included articles by Theremin, Bulat M. Galeyev, Lydia Kavina, Natalia Nesturkh and others. ST. PETERSBURG: THEREMIN DAYS ART FESTIVAL by Alexander S. Belonenko and Mikhail S. Zalivadny In St. Petersburg, the centenary of Theremin's birth was celebrated with a large-scale art festival held 24-29 No­ vember 1996. This festival, named "Theremin Days in St. Petersburg," was arranged by the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory, along with Hatoyama Itiro Electronics; Acoustics and Music School Studio; the Composer's House of St. Pe­ tersburg; the Mikhail Glinka Choral Col­ lege; the Cinema House; the Humani­ tarian University of Trade Unions; and the Alexander Popov Central Museum of Communication. The festival commenced at the The­ ater and Concert Hall of the Humanitar­ ian University of Trade Unions with a concert of young musicians that demon­ strated various uses of synthesizers in folk and jazz music. That same day, the ballet Symphony of Colors by Anastasia Uspenskaya (scenario and choreogra­ phy) and Gerrado Belov (music) was performed at the St. Petersburg Conser­ vatory Opera and Ballet Theater. In this work, electronic music, lighting effects and expressive choreography formed an original, aesthetic whole. In accord with the "Theremin Days" theme, an important part of the program was a conference devoted to research and practice, "Leon Theremin, Pioneer of Electronic Art," held at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and at the Museum of Com­ munication. The conference called to­ gether specialists in the natural and tech­ nical sciences, the humanities and the arts. The first day included historical re­ ports and memoirs; the second day was devoted to acoustic, pedagogical and aes­ thetic problems connected to Theremin's research ideas and inventions in the field of music; and the main subject of the third day was contemporary electronic music history since 1950. Lydia Kavina, Theremin's great-niece, gave a lecture-recital entitled "Leon Theremin and the Instrument Bearing His Name" at the Chamber Music Hall of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. She discussed Theremin's life and the fate of the electronic musical instrument named after him. She also performed (with the assistance of pianist Yelena Kravchenko) several arrangements of classical music works and contemporary compositions for theremin. The next day, Kavina held a seminar at the Mu­ seum of Communication on the applica­ tions of the theremin to contemporary music and on performance and peda­ gogical problems relevant to playing this instrument. Theremin's activities in light-and-music synthesis formed the basis of a lecture presented by painter Valentine Afanasiev at the conservatory. The lecture in­ cluded an analysis of Afanasiev's paint­ ing Bach's Chaconne, which had been ex­ hibited at the Salon (the famous French exhibition center) in Paris in 1995 and had provoked the interest of many art­ ists, among them Pierre Boulez. Two days earlier, Sergei Zorin, the director of the Optical Theater at Roerich's Interna­ tional Center in Moscow, screened his video documentary on Theremin, Ne Plus Ne Moins ("No More, No Less"—the Theremin family's ancient motto in old French), based on interviews with Theremin toward the end of his long life. The apotheosis of the festival was the film, Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey, produced by U.S. film director Steven M. Martin. Theremin's nearly unbelievable biography and his significance in the his­ tory of electronic music are revealed in the film through archival materials, the director's conversations with Theremin and commentaries of various musicians of the twentieth century. After the screening, the audience met with Mar­ tin, who had arrived in St...