On the 1st of July, the visitors of the Moscow Hermitage garden received a magnificent music gift from the Orchestra of the 1st Independent Semenovsky Rifle Regiment. The ensemble performed here in the framework of the Military Orchestras in Parks programme parading through the capital’s parks on the cusp of the 10th International Military Music Festival Spasskaya Tower.
Brave musicians with shoulder straps under the direction of the conductor Konstantin Shumilov have presented to the visitors of the garden a bright potpourri of various genres, which contained
«It’s a great pleasure to see the guys — young, energetic, and how they play — you will listen with delight, real virtuosos!» Galina, a listener, shares her impressions. «I arrived specially to the Hermitage Garden from the southeast of Moscow, and now I am glad that I was not afraid of treacherous weather and could see the performance of such a remarkable military orchestra!»
According to the head of «semenovtsy», the programme for parks, where usually various audience gathers, is made taking into account musical tastes of different generations. Someone from the audience danced from their heart as accompaniment to the melody from the movie Amphibian Man of 1961, others sang «White Roses» — a hit of the late 80’s, and the youth applauded the compositions of Maroon 5, a modern pop band from California. Youngsters gambolled with the same enthusiasm on the dance floor in front of the summer bandshell throughout the whole concert. The magic property of music is that it is easy and natural to erase the boundaries between generations and countries.
«It’s an honour and joy for our brass band to participate in the Anniversary Festival Spasskaya Tower and to meet the audience in such an informal atmosphere as today," says the conductor, senior lieutenant Konstantin Shumilov. «Sometimes we have to warm up the audience at concerts, so that people could thaw out of everyday worries and open their hearts to the music, and this evening everything just turned out perfectly well — the weather, good acoustics, excellent mood of visitors and musicians! Everybody was literally on the same wavelength!»