Images. Mussorgsky and Borodin

"We prepared this record with great love for academic music. It was important for us to preserve its greatness and bring jazz rhythms to it. And Nikolai Levinovsky coped with this task superbly. Nikolai Yakovlevich is a legend of Russian jazz and one of my mentors, who turns 80 this year. On this occasion, on December 18, a concert presentation of our new album and celebration of its Anniversary will take place at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall," Igor Butman shared.

The founder and artistic director of the Moscow Jazz Orchestra, maestro Igor Butman likes to create projects in the crossover style: his band's repertoire includes a number of solo programs with music by Russian classics, as well as joint programs with Yuri Bashmet and the Moscow Soloists Chamber Ensemble, the New Russia Symphony Orchestra, Ildar Abdrazakov and Hibla Gerzmava. Therefore, it is not surprising that on the Orchestra's first album in the last 7 years, classics are reconnected with jazz, continuing the bright crossover line that began with the recording of the album "Tales of Scheherazade".

The new opus of the collective consists of two parts: two jazz suites by composer and arranger Nikolai Levinovsky, created on the basis of works by Russian classics — Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin. The first, "Images of Mussorgsky", was created by Levinovsky based on the cycle "Pictures from the Exhibition" of the great Russian classic and is a witty reinterpretation of familiar pieces from childhood in a jazz key. In the second jazz suite, "Rus", Nikolai Yakovlevich weaves a grandiose symphonic jazz canvas from the themes of the opera "Prince Igor" and Symphony No. 2 ("Bogatyrskaya"), striking in its scope, paradoxical harmonic finds and freshness of ideas.