October 18-24th
The 14th Annual American-Russian Documentary Film Festival was held in New York. Screenings took place on the RUSDOCFILMFEST online platform within a week. The festival program included films from Armenia, Bulgaria, Chile, Georgia, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and the USA.
Our own award this year was presented to American director Peter Rosen for the "Rachmaninoff revisited" film. During the ceremony, Peter talked about his Russian roots and with great pleasure worked on the material in which the music and its perception became the "protagonist". The film includes vivid shots taken in the auditorium at different times. And we saw magic when the energy of penetration into Rachmaninov's sounds was captured by the skill of a videographer.
September 18th
A round table "New York of Scott Fitzgerald" was held, dedicated to the 125th anniversary of the birth of the writer. Participants: Olga Timofeeva, Nina Rumyantseva, Natalia Mizuri and Victoria Kurchenko. Fitzgerald's work is familiar to many Russian-speaking Americans firsthand, the author was translated into Russian in order to demonstrate the inevitable death of the bourgeois system. But often the description of New York, Hollywood, California and other places led to the romanticization of the West and contributed to the future emigration of Soviet people. In the novels "The Great Gatsby", "This Side of Paradise", "Tender Night", the influence of F.M. Dostoevsky: deep psychologism and the aura of the city, which have always attracted readers brought up on understanding the flaws of society and the theme of Crime and Punishment.
June 12th
The second part of the presentation "The Road to NYU" with Marina Vinitskaya took place in our zoom auditorium. NYU is one of the most expensive universities in the world, founded in 1831 and located in the Big Apple. Marina introduced the guests of the studio to how many opportunities there are for admission not only to this university, but also to the rest - the most prestigious, for applicants with any income and social status. And even, it turns out, it is not at all necessary to be an excellent student. See our material here and advise your young friends to set the highest goals. And we are working to build a bridge between our Society and the University of New York.
April 11th
Natalia Koren-Kropf, President of the American Association of Women Artists (NAWA), which has existed in New York since 1889, gave a lecture on the virtual platform of our hall. The topic of the presentation was related to the study of the history of the formation of female professional artistic skills, as well as the comprehension of modern gender issues in the world of sculpture and painting.
March 13th
A virtual cruise ball has brought variety to our themed programs. Accompanied by the musical accompaniment of Gennady Grevnin the guests went to the podium in their apartments, showed the outfits for the ball, raised glasses, made toasts and wishes to each other. It turned out that a difficult year brought us together in a special way, we did everything to continue an active creative life. Poems and memories of joint travels sounded, there was an open microphone and informal communication. Lyubov and Gennady Grevnin, Dmitry Garanin, Polina Pecherskaya, Ekaterina Zharmusik became the winners of the audience's sympathy competition.
February 7th
In memory of the great poet, we held a meeting "Remembering Pushkin". Participants from many countries of the world visited our virtual hall. An imaginary journey in the footsteps of the trip of 1820 led us to the Caucasus, where the poem "Prisoner of the Caucasus" was conceived, which this year turned 200 years old. The guests had the opportunity to share their reading of the Pushkin text.
January 3rd
We started the new year with a program dedicated to the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven. Elena Kushnerova, a pianist, journalist and author of literary texts, who spoke from Baden-Baden (Germany), talked about the difficult life and creative path of the composer. "Comprehending Beethoven" - this is how the ether was called. After the lecture, the guests of the Pushkin Society from Europe and America discussed the place of the great romantic in world culture, why Beethoven became a symbolic figure, including in everyday life, how the composer turned into a meme and tone for telephones. Who is he? Classic, traditionalist or avant-garde?