July 28-29 2018, in days of celebrating of memory of Saint Prince Vladimir and the 1030-th anniversary of the baptism of Rus, on Balaam’s blessing of his Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill was held the IV international St. Vladimir’s Orthodox singing festival “Illuminator,” according to patriarhiei.
The event was organized by the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Valaam monastery and the charity Fund “the Light of Valaam”.
The festival was attended by ten musical groups from Russia, Moldova, Greece, Montenegro, Belarus and Finland:
- choir of Valaam monastery artistic Director — Alexander Bordak;
- ensemble “Blagaya vest” (Moscow), artistic Director — Ekaterina Avetisyan;
- the early music ensemble Ex Libris (Moscow), artistic Director — Daniel Sayapin;
- the Seminary choir Barnaul (Altai territory), artistic Director — Dimitri Kotov;
- academic choir of the Petrozavodsk state University (Republic of Karelia), artistic Director — Nikolay Matachin;
- The singers are brothers of Vyborg (Viipurin Lauluveikot) (Helsinki, Finland), artistic Director Ilkka the Aun (Ilkka Aunu);
- the choir Salutaris (Republic of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus), artistic Director — Olga Yanum;
- choir musica Antivari (Montenegro, Bar), artistic Director of Miro, Krusic (Miro Kruščić);
- Byzantine choir of “Agios Ioannis, Kukuzelis” (Greece, Thessaloniki), artistic Director Emmanuil Daskalakis (Emmanuil Daskalakis);
- choir of the Academy of arts. G. Musicescu (Republic of Moldova, Chisinau), artistic Director — Ilona Stepan.
Special guests of the festival were Archimandrite Nikodimos Kabarnos (Greece) and the ringer Alexey Pugachev from the Moscow workshop of “Bell city”.
Despite the fact that due to unrest in the Poconos was limited to shipping and canceled the portion of the passenger flights, the event was attended by over five thousand people.
The first day began with the divine Liturgy. Choir singing sounded simultaneously in the four temples of Central manor of the Valaam Spaso-Preobrazhensky monastery. In the Holy Transfiguration Cathedral chants were performed by the choir of “Agios Ioannis, Kukuzelis” and choir of the Valaam monastery.
Then took place the opening ceremony of the festival, during which the Abbot of Valaam monastery, Chairman of the Synodal Commission for the causes of saints, Bishop Trinity Pankraty has announced the fourth season of the Valaam International festival takes the theme of “the Feat of new martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church”. Also with the word addressed by the Vice-Chairman of the World energy Council, founder of the charity Fund “the Light of Valaam” Oleg Budargin.
Was organized online broadcast of the festival events online. According to the organizers, to social networks of the monastery and of the festival in social networks Odnoklassniki, Vkontakte, Facebook and YouTube were joined by about 200 thousand unique online viewers. Comments came from Rostov and Smolensk, Kaliningrad and Khabarovsk, Serbia, Macedonia, Belarus and Ukraine.
This year gathered at the Song festival grounds of the monastery for the first time viewers were given the opportunity to choose the best performer. According to them they became Archimandrite Nikodimos (Cavarnos) from Greece. Special gifts Bishop Trinity Pankraty gave the choir of the Valaam monastery under the leadership of Alexander Bordak and the choir from Belarus “Salutaris”.
Upon completion of the event creative group “Parsuna” produced a commemorative panoramic photo of participants and guests of the festival, “Illuminator”.
On materials of news agencies and the website of the Valaam monastery