Ohrid, 12 July 2024 (MIA) – The 64th Ohrid Summer Festival opened on Friday with a concert performance by Lithuanian-born composer and violinist Julian Rachlin and the National Philharmonic orchestra. 

President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova opened the event, pointing out that the Ohrid Summer Festival is again facing a big challenge - to show and prove for the sixty-fourth time that Nietzsche was right when he said that life without music would be a mistake.

Siljanovska Davkova noted that more than sixty years ago, at the peak of the Cold War, here, in the city on the lake, surrounded by mountain peaks and protected by Samuel's Fortress, the Ohrid Summer Festival was born, and thus, she added, " the natural monument also became a cultural monument."

"And... artists from the West and the East, from the North and the South, were sending from Ohrid the message: "Beauty will save the world". Art transforms, reconciles, gives birth to hope for a different, common future. We have witnessed a rich program history, a plethora of top artists, numerous well-deserved plaques for understanding and cooperation, fellowship with dedicated missionaries of culture.... Art has a wonderful power to bridge differences and erase borders. I deeply believe that cultural diplomacy is far more powerful than traditional diplomacy. Moreover, it does not rush to win, but nurtures and heals with notes and words," the President said. 

According to her, art is the twin of spiritual freedom. Personal and collective sarrow and joy, aspiration and hope are embedded in the music and the dance. There lie the source and reason for our passion for singing and dancing. Art is a treasure of individual, as well as collective memory, a stake in the present, and in the future.

"I feel that tonight the virtuoso Julian Rachlin and the Macedonian Philharmonic will open Ohrid's heavenly musical gate for us so that together we can step towards the beautiful, the good and the sublime," she noted.

Minister of Culture and Tourism, Zoran Ljutkov, pointed out in his address that the Ohrid Summer Festival represents a time chain of high artistic values ​​that are created only in the ancient Ohrid.

"Like no other place in the world, it is able to collect the heavenly ambrosia of human thought, which revives the centuries and leads us along the paths that only reveal the core of the existence and future of eternal art. I am convinced that this year too we will jointly witness events that will bring the most valuable gifts to the Macedonian audience: the skill to forge immortality from words, to capture timelessness from musical expression, and to play the eternal dance of life on stage," he said. 

The artistic message of this festival edition was conveyed by the violinist Vladimir Kostov. 

"Art is a powerful form of expression that conveys emotions, ideas and stories that transcend language and cultural barriers. It challenges perspectives, inspires creativity and brings about social change. We live in a time when more than ever we need a system of values, and art as the purest form of expression in its nature organically integrates the most important value postulates. Art does not lie, music cannot soundly preach under the veil of unprofessionalism. The honest and unobtrusive charm of high artistic expression should be our anchor, but also the wind in our sails that will move us forward to new challenges, to personal and collective victories," said Kostov. 

The 64th edition of the Ohrid Summer Festival takes place from July 12 until August 20, when the open stages of the Ancient Theater, Dolni Saraj, the Church of Saint Sophia, and the Cultural Center will welcome more than 500 artists from 24 countries, and art-lovers will indulge in 27 concerts, six theater performances and three events as part of an additional program. 

The selector of the music program of the festival, maestro Bisera Chadlovska, expressed satisfaction that artists of the Macedonian Philharmonic, which marks its 80th anniversary this year, will perform together with maestro Rachlin at the opening of this year's edition of the festival at the Ancient Theater. 

"We are due for many events, with a number of local performers, who are not at all lagging behind popular world music names in terms of quality. Some of them include the piano duo Marija Gjoshevska and Slavica Micovska, Vlatko Stefanovski on guitar, who celebrates 50 years of solo career, as well as a traditional concert performance by the Chamber Orchestra of the Music Youth. There are also two concerts dedicated to Macedonian composers Tomislav Zografski and Stojche Toshevski, as well as Goce Kolarovski," Chadlovska told a press conference on the festival's program.

Foreign artists in the music program include guitar virtuoso Gerhard Reichenbach, pianist Gary Douglas, cellist Dragan Đorđević Suzuki alongside pianist Andrey Gugnin, double bass player Dominik Wagner... There is also a concert by the Montenegrin Symphony Orchestra, the Adriatic Piano Quintet, the Halir Trio and many others. Top Belgian cellist Camille Thomas, accompanied by pianist Julien Brocal, will perform as part of the last day of the music program. 

Salsa band "Mercado Negro" will perform at the birthday concert of the festival.

The selector of the drama program of the festival, Sanja Arsovska, announced a diverse theatrical adventure for the upcoming festival edition.

"This year's program will be marked by three theater premieres - of the local theaters in Veles and Bitola with the plays "Racin" and "The Seagull", as well as a world premiere of "King Lear" of the Lit Moon Theater Company from Santa Barbara, California," said Arsovska.

In addition, Arsovska announced theater performances of the Maribor Slovene National Theatre with a play by director Tomaž Pandur and his sister who finished the play after his death, a stand-up show with the famous Serbian and international actor Nikola Djuricko, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" with the Drama Theater from Belgrade and "Alice in Fearland" of the Yugoslav Drama Theater, Belgrade.  

The press conference also said that the Ohrid Summer Festival, as part of the European Festivals Association, will continue to nurture cultural values ​​in order to keep the epithet of a highly renowned European festival.

Photo: MIA