A marathon of concerts, workshops and interactive meetings with the most prominent ethnic musicians from Russia, its neighboring countries and beyond.
The St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Musical Arts established the Music of the World festival in 2016, opening its doors to musicians from around the world.
Musicians of the festival give voice to museum rarities — ethnic instruments of one of the world’s largest collections kept by the Museum of Music in the Sheremetev Palace: saz, darbuka, kurai, mouth harp, Russian gusli, kalyuka, honk, jouhikko, kantele, bouzouki, duduk and countless other rarities.
A series of workshops and creative meetings with musicians on a variety of topics, from lessons on gusli and balalaika to a concert-talk about Kazakh national instruments, as well as a series of tours of the largest collection of musical instruments in Russia were held within the festival at the Sheremetev Palace in the Museum of Music in 2021. The festival continued with concerts of the internationally recognized ethnic music masters and their young followers in the Bryantsev Theatre of Young Audiences. The events were broadcast at the museum’s website and in the festival’s VKontakte community.
The idea of the festival is to preserve national traditions and, at the same time, to express the desire to speak to the audience in a modern musical language.
