Festival Commentary from the Executive Director:

The festival weeks are without a doubt the most exciting in the year. Months of planning, preparations, and scheduling, endless hours of talking with colleagues and thinking over every detail, come to fruition.

There is so much to think of, to take care of, and to discuss . When we planned the first trip of our string quartet to Moscow in 2002, we budgeted four airplane tickets – two for the violinists, and one each for the violist and cellist. Little did we know back then that the cello requires its own airplane ticket and, unless the owner of the instrument has a special protective case, the cello has to have its own seat on the plane. Well, that was one of our first budgeting lessons, but certainly not the last.

Creating collaborative programs is especially challenging and rewarding. In 2003, musicians from the Moscow Conservatory invited Boston University graduate students to compose short pieces and send them to Moscow, where the compositions would be rehearsed and practiced for a future performance during the Days of Russian Culture in America.

When the Russians arrived in the United States a month later, each of the chosen young composers from Boston University had an opportunity to rehearse his/her composition with the Russian ensemble and provide them with last-minute directions before performing it to the public. I remember sitting at the rehearsals and thinking to myself, "Music certainly is a universal language."

Our youngest participant was the three-month-old son of the Russian String Quartet's first violinist and cellist. When the trip was in the planning stage they were not aware that there would be an addition to the family. They decided that to bring the baby with them to America would be the right thing to do; it worked well!