Valery Gergiev and Sergei Babayan in a Prokofiev program

In Moscow, a concert dedicated to the works of the late Prokofiev: the composer's last two symphonies, and his last piano concerto, performed by the American-Armenian musician Sergei Babayan.

Starting each year on Easter Sunday (according to the Julian calendar), the Moscow Easter Festival features great concerts with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra and music director Valery Gergiev, but also internationally renowned soloists. In 2012, the festival – dedicated to Sergei Prokofiev – invited the pianists Daniil Trifonov (1st prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in 2011 and third prize at the Chopin Competition in 2010), Alexander Toradze (familiar to Gergiev), Alexei Volodin (a former student of the Moscow Conservatory) and the American-Armenian pianist Sergei Babayan.

Over the past 20 years spent at the head of the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Valery Gergiev has clearly broadened one of the most prestigious Russian orchestras' repertoire. Their interpretations of Prokofiev have become legendary, not only because Gergiev has recorded most of the composer's masterpieces, but also because he has contributed in promoting the rarest pieces Prokofiev has ever written. This series of concerts, programmed as part of the 11th anniversary of the Moscow Easter Festival, displays complete Prokofiev symphonies, but also four of his Piano concertos, along with excerpts from the composer's great ballets (Cinderella and Romeo and Juliet).

This concert was broadcast live on medici.tv.