Day after day Yuya Kikawada walks through the wreckage, checking shelters and hospitals, refusing to give up hope

Yuya Kikawada's life since the disasters in Japan has been reduced to the most elemental of actions: putting one foot in front of the other, over and over and over again, as he walks through the devastation of his home town in search of his mother.

Kikawada, 27, a maths and English tutor at a local crammer, used to dream of playing guitar in a rock band in California or studying medicine in the Philippines. Now those dreams are on hold – perhaps for ever – as he looks for a job and a place to live. But first he must find his mother, Matsue, who has not been seen since the earthquake.

About 17,5000 people remain missing since the 11 March tsunami. "I just look for my mother," Kikawada said. "I have nothing to do except look for my mother."

He has visited every evacuation shelter in the area at least twice. He has tried tracking down the people where she worked. He has phoned hospitals in the area and in outlying districts, after hearing that some of the injured were transferred away from the area.

"But she hasn't contacted us and the hospital hasn't contacted us so maybe she is in a coma or has lost her memory," Kikawada said.

He will not admit the possibility that she may not have survived the tsunami. On 20 March, in this same town, an 80-year-old woman and her teenage grandson were pulled alive from the wreckage. Kikawada said the rescue renewed his hope.

And so the search continues. He is already on his second pair of shoes, a pair of bright white tennis shoes donated by a friend. His legs hurt, and it is cold, even bundled in his North Face jacket. "You never saw anyone walking before. People drove," he said.

His car survived the tsunami, but petrol is in extremely short supply. He, his father and brother took turns waiting in line this week to fill the tank for the first time after the tsunami. It took 11 hours, and they were allotted 13 litres.

His starting point this morning is his sister's two-room flat, where he slept on a futon in the kitchen.

Fourteen members of his family have been sharing the space since the earthquake. Each aftershock sets the babies crying and gives a teenage cousin a panic attack. Kikawada said he tried to spend some nights with friends, to give the rest of the family, and himself, some space.

Kikawada last saw Matsue, 53, on the morning of the tsunami, when she went off to her job at a nursing home. He is not sure, even now, where she was when the earthquake hit.

His sister, Mai, managed to speak to her in the few minutes between the earthquake and tsunami. But Kikawada never got through, and he couldn't get home to check on her because a bridge had fallen in the quake. "My mother didn't pick up the phone after the quake and I was very worried about her," he said. "I thought I could come here, but if I had come here, then I don't know what would happen to me."

When he made it back, the landscape was so altered he struggled to figure out if his house still stood, and where it was if it did. He only barely recognised the charred and twisted orange signs of the petrol station. All of the pumps were gone.

The bridge over the Jogawa river, where he used to fish as a boy, was strewn with corpses. Nearby homes had been sheared off from the foundations, leaving only the concrete outline where rooms once stood, like an archaeological ruin.

The neighbour's house had crashed into their home, collapsing part of a balcony. An oil tanker lay on its side near the spot that had once been the car port, beside a heap of metal that looked like it had once been a tractor.

By this week, the military had cleared roads through wreckage, which saved Kikawada from stomping through the thick mud with gum boots. But he will never get used to the way the neighbourhood looks. "It's so unreal," he said. "Maybe it was just a really bad nightmare."

He steps around the back and climbs inside the house from the bathroom window. On the inside, it seems clear, the house has to be torn down to be rebuilt. The tsunami has tossed a heavy wood cabinet into the living room Kikawada had never seen before. A thick tide mark runs around the second floor at about knee level.

On this trip home, Kikawada had come looking for the key to a rental property his mother owned, hoping some of the family could move into a room on the second floor. He does not expect to ever live here again. The home will be demolished and he has heard the adjacent air force base will probably buy up all the land.

He has no objections. "I don't think I can find a good job around here now, or a place to live because so many people have lost their homes," he said.

Even if he did find work, he is certain he does not want to return to this neighbourhood, which is only a few hundred metres from the sea. "I don't want to live close to the ocean any more. Nobody should live close to the ocean," he said. Soon he will leave for the larger city of Sendai where he thinks it will be easier to find work.

Kikawada has been thinking of his college days in California recently, and regretting that he didn't study harder. Before the tsunami, he thought he might try to go to medical school.

He never told his mother though, because he thought she would be opposed. "My parents used to tell me: 'Get married now. Show us the grandson'," he said. "But then they kind of gave up. I'm kind of free."

Except of course that he now feels responsible for his father, as his parents' oldest son. Freedom will have to wait until he takes care of his father, he said.

"I cannot go now, until my mother is found. I have to look for a new job, and a place to live. I have to take care of my father."

But before leaving for Sendai, and the start to his new life, he must make the day's final stop: at the town's makeshift morgue.

His dread is evident. There are scores of coffins waiting to be claimed, and Kikawada is terrified his mother might end up among the dead being buried in mass graves.

Like the other visitors, he starts by scanning a wall of photographs of the newly recovered bodies. Many of the faces are badly bruised; a note warns some bodies may be dismembered.

Kikawada can bear to look for only a few minutes before turning away. None of the pictures are of his mother, he said.

It's a strange feeling. "Before I look at the pictures I get really worried but after checking the pictures I feel really relieved," he said. "I don't want to find my mother in here."

Zipangu Fest, London

When it comes to off-the-scale weirdness, Japan comes out on top. And as the name suggests, it's that side of the nation's cinema this inaugural festival celebrates, with a menu of cult/indie/exploitation film, animation, and outsider documentary and other oddities. Where else will you find naked hippies on motorbikes (music doc Rock Tanjo: The Movement 70s); cartoons about lecherous carnival freaks (Midori: The Girl In The Freakshow); a transgender performer dressed as a giant bouquet of flowers (documentary Pyuupiru 2001-2008); and a kick-ass squad of mutant girls (er, Mutant Girl Squad). Indie movement leader Tetsuaki Matsue, meanwhile, introduces his amazing one-take street music documentary, Live Tape.

Various venues, Tue to 28 Nov

ID Fest, Derby

What makes a person English? What makes a person a person? Are English people people? These and other questions might be answered at this new festival exploring identity (exclusively English identity this year), but even if they aren't, you won't have wasted your time. There are panel discussions and vox-pop surveys (including one-minute shorts from Chinese film-makers on what they think Englishness means), but for the most part it's simply great English movies, whether that's up-to-date material like Four Lions, Adulthood or Patrick Keiller's Robinson In Ruins; 1960s fare like Rita Tushingham debut A Taste Of Honey and Blow-Up; historical works like Olivier's Henry V and Great Expectation; or more offbeat choices like Radio On and Dog Soldiers. Possibly too much to get a handle on, but film-makers and experts will be on hand to guide you.

Quad, Thu to 28 Nov

Discovering Latin America Film Festival, London

Now that the likes of Guillermo del Toro, Walter Salles and Fernando Mereilles are global players and Argentina is winning Oscars, who will be the next world-conquering South American exports? This continent-wide catch-up is good place to start looking. Names to watch include Mexico's Eduardo Lucatero, whose Prelude is a Linklater-esque romance pulled off in a single take; Colombia's Oscar Ruiz Navia, whose Crab Trap mixes coastal arthouse with clashing cultures; or Esmir Filho, whose The Famous And The Dead follows a YouTube-happy rural Brazilian with a Bob Dylan fixation. Closer to earth is inspirational trash-into-art documentary Waste Land, produced by Fernando Mereilles.

Various venues, Sat to 28 Nov

Jamesons Cult Film Club: Aliens, Manchester

For those who preferred the days when James Cameron movies were all about blasting extraterrestrials to smithereens with massive hardware rather than hugging trees with blue cats, this augmented presentation of his 1986 masterpiece is the perfect antidote to Avatar. What's more, it actually takes place on planet LV-426 – or at least the nearest Earth equivalent, which is a disused Manchester warehouse decked out to with sci-fi tricks and treats, including live-action reenactments.

Great Northern Warehouse, Thu

London’s premiere festival devoted to Japanese cinema announces its much anticipated  first ever programme. 

During the sold‐out Japanese Halloween Shlockfest Double Bill of RoboGeisha and Big Tits Zombie 3D at London’s Barbican Centre on October 29th, festival director Jasper Sharp will be announcing the full lineup of the inaugural Zipangu Fest, to be held at various venues across the East End of London from November 23rd to 28th.

Zipangu Fest begins on Tuesday November 23rd with a special event entitled Nippon Year Zero: Japanese Experimental Film from the 1960s‐1970s, presented in collaboration with Close‐Up at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. This retrospective programme will introduce audiences to the early Japanese avant-garde filmmaking scene with rare screenings of works by three landmark figures, Donald Richie, Motoharu Jonouchi and Masanori Oe, who captured the zeitgeist they were intrinsically a part of, articulating themselves in ways that range from the poetic to the abrasive.

The festival officially gets underway on Wednesday 24th with the Zipangu Fest Opening Party at Café 1001 on Brick Lane, featuring the UK premiere of Pyuupiru 2001 – 2008, Daishi Matsunaga’s moving
documentary charting the physical, psychological and artistic metamorphosis of the flamboyant transgender artist Pyuupiru. The evening will also feature a selection of shorts and a screening of Rackgaki: Japanese Graffiti, a documentary examining Japan’s explosive graffiti scene, and concludes with a set from London’s top Japanese DJ ‐Tomoki Tamura + SUPERMETHOD. Tickets for the whole evening cost £5.

The following evening, on Thursday 25th, Zipangu Fest will continue at Café 1001 with the Live Tape ‘Live’ Night at Café 1001, a music‐themed evening that sees the UK premiere of Rock Tanjo: The Movement 70s, a documentary looking at the birth of ‘New Rock’ in 1970s Japan featuring interviews and performances from bands including the Flower Travellin’ Band, and the UK premiere of Live Tape, the award‐winning one‐take concert film featuring singer‐songwriter Kenta Maeno that has been making waves at festivals
around the world. Our Special Festival Guest, Live Tape director Tetsuaki Matsue, will be in attendance to introduce his film, which will be followed by a live set by Maeno accompanied by Yuki Yoshida on the Chinese harp. Tickets for the entire evening cost £5.

Friday November 26th sees Zipangu Fest moving to Genesis Cinema in Mile End where our main festival programme begins with Yuriko’s Aroma, Kota Yoshida’s humorous portrait of an aromatherapist besotted by the scent of a sweaty high‐schooler, and ends with the UK premiere of Gen Takahashi’s epic Confessions of a Dog, a gripping indictment of corruption within the Japanese police, as the closing film on Sunday 28th November.

Other UK premieres include Annyong Yumika, an innovative documentary homage to legendary Japanese pink film actress Yumika Hayashi who was mysteriously found dead after returning home from her 35th birthday celebrations, and the second title by Zipangu Fest special guest Tetsuaki Matsue; Love & Loathing & Lulu & Ayano, a revealing drama about exploitation and abuse in Japan’s Adult Video industry, directed by the infamous Hisayasu Sato, who will be in attendance to introduce the film; the all new Mutant Girls Squad, from Noboru Iguchi, director of the hits The Machine Girl and RoboGeisha; and Footed Tadpoles, a quirky coming‐of‐age drama from Tomoya Maeno.

Zipangu Fest is also proud to be presenting a selection of some of the finest in Japanese independent animation. The Zipangu Fest Ero Guro Mash Up Night features three nightmarishly morbid works in the
‘erotic grotesque’ tradition from the underground animators Hiroshi Harada and Naoyuki Niiya, while the beyond Anime: CALF Animation programme features recent envelope‐pushing works from Mirai Mizue, Kei Oyama, Atsushi Wada and TOCHKA.

Also featuring as part of the main programme are the Zipangu Retro screenings of two classic but very different titles rarely shown in the UK, Children of the Beehive (1948) and NN‐891102 (1999). Directed by one of the masters of Japanese cinema, Hiroshi Shimizu, Children of the Beehive relates the journey of a group of war orphans (in real life all orphans taken in and raised by the director) as they are taken under the wing of a nameless soldier and set out across a shattered, postwar landscape in search of a more certain future. NN‐891102, the debut feature by cult hero Go Shibata, depicts a traumatised Nagasaki survivor’s obsession with recreating the sound of the atomic bomb.

Following the festival, a selection of titles from the programme will be screened at the Arnolfini in Bristol, from Thursday 16th to Sunday 16th December. The Arnolfini programme consists of Annyong Kimchee,
Children of the Beehive, Footed Tadpoles, Live Tape, NN‐891102, Confessions of a Dog and a selection of shorts.

RubyWorld Conf 2010 was held in Matsue, the capital city of Shimane, Japan on Sept 6th and 7th. Matsue is a beautiful, small town that is only a 1 hour flight north-west of Tokyo. This was the second RubyWorld Conf and it was held in Matz's hometown both years. The theme for this year was the Ruby Ecosystem.

RubyWorld Conf is one of the two annual Ruby conferences in Japan, the other one being RubyKaigi. RubyKaigi is a four-day developer's conference, so the sessions are more technical and the attendees are mostly developers. RubyWorld Conf has a mix of both business and technical sessions, attracting around 1000 business people and developers from all around Japan.

Matsue is an agricultural city. At one time the city saw a growing construction sector, but that has since dried up due to the recent global economic slowdown. The city, like the country Japan, is trying to find ways to expand its economy. With support from the local government and universities, the city, with Matz's blessing, is positioning itself as the hub for Ruby and OSS. Many local government officials, computer science and economy students and professors attended the conference. The local government is making things easier to attract IT companies; local students with Ruby education and experience provide good technical resources; and professors are studying how to benefit from Open Source software.

The city is advertising itself as a great place for IT companies and aspiring to be the Bangalore of Japan. In addition to boasting favorable local resources and policies, the city is promoting its infrastructure as an advantage for IT companies, citing their ample supply of electricity (less than one hour of power outage in a year, which is much lower than that of the US which averages 70 hours, and significantly lower than that of China which averages 800 hours), and citing Japan's public transportation system which is the most punctuate in the world. The city is also touting itself as a great place to live with very friendly policies for women raising their children. Matz decided work and live here to bring up his four kids in the growing and beautiful city of Matsue.

Despite all those favorable conditions, there are some challenges for the city of Matsue and the Rubyists in Japan. Most of the Ruby and Rails books and resources are only in English, and they need to be translated into Japanese to help students to learn Ruby and Rails. Also, there are some hostile attitudes towards Rails which people claim is invading Japan, and some experienced Rubyists won't use Rails. The advice from the Ruby core team is to accept Rails rather than fight it. One of the reasons is that Rails can bring in money where Ruby hasn't been able to.

I attended the conference this year and presented Ruby and Machine Learning. The slides are available here. In my presentation which was attended by Matz and Chad Fowler, I did a brief introduction to Machine Learning(ML), talked about the current state of Ruby and Machine Learning, surveyed the ML tools available today, and demonstrated Ruby code that uses ML. I also talked about and demonstrated tweetsentiments.com - an application that I developed using Ruby on Rails and Machine Learning to analyze the sentiments of tweets. Other presenters from overseas included world-renowned Chad Fowler, the co-founder/CTO of Animoto, Stevie Clifton, plus several people from Germany and Holland. The full speaker's list can be found here.

The conference was very well organized in a world-class venue, and each talk was simultaneously translated into English and Japanese in real time by experienced translators, so there was no problem understanding the native Japanese presenters. The conference was fun, educational, and good for networking. And I was able to experience the polite and friendly Japanese people and their culture, in addition to enjoying delicious food! Highly recommended. You can see additional photos here

Motohiko 曰く、 山陰中央新報 — Ｒｕｂｙ ラーメンのロゴで応援より。島根県松江市の製麺業中隆は、プログラミング言語「Ruby」のロゴをあしらった「Ruby on 松江ラーメン・キュービックシリーズ」を5月12日に発売した。しじみしょうゆ味ベースの「松江ラーメン」2食入りのボックスパッケージで、1つ500円。売り上げの一部はRubyアソシエーションに寄附される。 ご存知のとおりRubyの開発者まつもとゆきひろ氏は松江市在住。産官学連携のRuby City MATSUE プロジェクトが継続した活動を行うなど、地元の産業振興に一役買っている。ITProの記事で中隆の社長は発売の理由について『Rubyというソフトで地元の産業振興を行っていると聞き、ITには詳しくないが支援したいと思った。そこでRubyラーメンを企画し、売り上げの一部を寄付することにした』と説明し、地元がRubyを応援するという逆の方向の動きとなったようだ。 現時点ではインターネット通販のYahoo!ショッピングおよびAmazon.co.jpから注文可能となっている。Ruby支援にも「ご当地ラーメン」のお試しにもなるこの一品、お一ついかが？

すべて読む | デベロッパーセクション | Ruby

関連ストーリー：
まつもとゆきひろ、専大に来たる 2009年11月18日
Ruby 作者のまつもとゆきひろ氏が松江市の名誉市民に 2009年10月13日
お客の好みに合わせて一杯ずつ作るラーメン調理ロボット 2009年08月25日
カロリー半分の「カップヌードルライト」登場 2008年12月18日

Conductor Mariss Jansons

BATTLE OF THE ORCHESTRAS:
>> Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra often appears at or near the top of lists of the world's best orchestras. Its biennial appearances in Washington, hosted by the Washington Performing Arts Society, are generally some of the best concerts one can hear. The group returns for a concert tomorrow in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall (February 15, 8 p.m.), with Mariss Jansons conducting Rachmaninov's second symphony, as well as Dutch violinist Janine Jansen playing Sibelius's violin concerto. Prepare yourself today by listening to ten of the orchestra's past performances of complete symphonies, made available for free download at their Web site.

>> Guest conductor James Gaffigan, a "conductor to watch" according to reliable sources, gets his turn at the revolving podium of the National Symphony Orchestra this week (February 18 to 20), also in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. The all-Russian program features music by Lera Auerbach, one of my favorite living composers, as well as Tchaikovsky (yet another performance of the fourth symphony) and Rachmaninov's soupy second piano concerto. Russian virtuoso Denis Matsuev will certainly not disappoint as soloist.

>> We would guess that the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will fall to the bottom of this competition, with Itzhak Perlman as guest conductor of Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings and Beethoven's fifth symphony. He will also serve as soloist, with the BSO's oboist, in Bach's concerto for violin and oboe. The Strathmore performance is on Saturday night (February 20, 8 p.m.).

>> Don't count the University of Maryland Symphony out, certainly not in terms of interesting repertory, which makes their concert Saturday night at Clarice Smith Center (February 20, 8 p.m.) very interesting. Cellist Evelyn Elsing takes the solo part in Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante, and soprano Linda Mabbs and baritone Jason Stearns will take part in a rare performance of Alexander Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony.

AMERICAN MUSIC:
>> As it approaches its 20th season, Vocal Arts Society has organized a major festival, America Sings in the Nation's Capital, devoted to the championing of American song. The best part of the concept is that many of these concerts are free, beginning this Friday at the Library of Congress with a concert of American music by Tapestry and Friends (February 19, 8 p.m.).

>> The free concerts of American music continue on Saturday with a recital by soprano Brooke Evers and pianist Grace Cho at Bethesda's Westmoreland Congregational Church (February 20, 7 p.m.) and an intriguing recital of music by Washington-based composers performed by Washington's own character tenor Robert Baker at the Phillips Collection (February 21, 4 p.m.). The latter is free with the price of admission to the museum.

ALSO FREE:
>> Stephen Ackert will narrate an unusual program featuring pianist Miceal O'Rourke playing music by Debussy, as part of the free Sunday concert series at the National Gallery of Art next Sunday (February 21, 6:30 p.m.).

FURTHERMORE:
>> Organist Jeremy Filsell, who will soon be welcomed as Artist-in-Residence at Washington National Cathedral, will perform a recital on both piano and organ this Saturday (February 20, 4 p.m.) at Silver Spring's Spencerville Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

>> Members of the Choral Arts Society (hopefully not too many of them!) will perform selections of Renaissance polyphony and Heinrich Schütz's Musikalische Exequien on Saturday (February 20, 8 p.m.) on the Dumbarton Concerts series.

>> The Cathedral Choral Society gets an early start on the Lenten season of Passion performances, with Bach's celebrated St. Matthew Passion, next Sunday (February 21, 4 p.m.) at Washington National Cathedral.

>> For more concert information, go to Ionarts.

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 7 (EUROPA PRESS)

El Festival de Música de Canarias se despide hoy en el Auditorio de Tenerife de su vigésimo sexta edición con la Orquesta Nacional Rusa como protagonista, dirigida por su fundador y director titular Mikhail Pletnev.

Las obras elegidas para despedir el ciclo de 2010 tienen como eje central a la música de Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), seleccionando para la ocasión la Suite del ballet El Perno y su Novena Sinfonía, obra con la que se clausura el Festival. Además, la formación rusa y su director, acompañados al piano por Denis Matsuev, ejecutarán el Concierto para piano nº 2, de Rajmaninov, abriendo la velada la Obertura Rusa de Golovanov, informó el Gobierno canario en un comunicado de prensa.

Como director de orquesta, Golovanov se caracterizó por la interpretación de dos compositores malditos para el régimen comunista: Alexander Scriabin y Sergei Rajmaninov, en los que encontraba ese toque de misticismo con el que Golovanov gustaba de relacionar el fenómeno musical.

Golovanov logró ocupar varios cargos de confianza en las instituciones musicales de la Urss, por ejemplo en la Ópera del Bolshoi. Sin embargo, el músico fue expulsado por decisión expresa de Stalin tras empeñarse en mantener al cantante judío Mark Reizen al frente del reparto de Boris Godunov. No obstante, otras fuentes apuntan a que el despido tuvo causas más objetivas, entre ellas el fracaso en algunas producciones operísticas y sus modales autoritarios y hasta paranoicos en la dirección de orquesta.

Su música, entre ellas la Obertura Rusa, es fiel reflejo de su concepción de lo musical como una efusión de sonoridad y vehemencia, en la que está presente el toque nacionalista a través de una épica que, remotamente, recuerda a la Obertura 1812 de Chaikovski.

(Mariinsky)

When it launched last year with an outstanding recording of Shostakovich's opera The Nose, the Mariinsky label seemed as if it was going to make available some genuinely important performances of the repertory that Valery Gergiev and his company have been exploring now for almost two decades – recordings of the Rimsky-Korsakov operas that were not included in Gergiev's series for Philips, perhaps, or Russian rarities such as Rubinstein's The Demon. What has been issued subsequently, though, has been far less adventurous, and this latest Rachmaninov disc is distinctly run of the mill. Denis Matsuev's piano playing is often admired, but always seems to me to be short on personality, and that lack of individuality is a serious flaw in both the Third Piano Concerto and the Paganini Rhapsody. The opening of the concerto is so lacking in presence, or in any sense of what is about to unfold, that attention begins to wander within seconds, and though Matsuev has all the technique he needs to muscle his way through the huge first-movement cadenza, the performances rarely come to life elsewhere.

Rating: 2/5

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.- El director y fundador de la Orquesta Nacional Rusa, Mikhail Pletnev, ha considerado hoy "muy buena" la acústica de los auditorios Alfredo Kraus, en la capital grancanaria, y Santa Cruz de Tenerife, así como la evolución de las salas de audición en España en los últimos veinte años.

Pletnev, que ofrecerá los conciertos de clausura de la 26 edición del Festival de Música de Canarias (el primero de los cuales será esta noche en el Auditorio Alfredo Kraus), ha agradecido también su participación en el mismo, pues ha considerado que se trata de un encuentro musical de grandes orquestas y músicos.

Un festival que además es seguido por público español y no turístico, lo cual le ha sorprendido gratamente, según ha manifestado en una rueda de prensa ofrecida en la capital grancanaria.

El director, pianista y compositor dirigirá a la Orquesta Nacional Rusa, formada por nuevas generaciones de músicos con "muy buenas garantías" y por intérpretes de más experiencia, y al pianista ha indicado Pletnev.

La orquesta interpretará en la primera parte del programa la "Sinfonía Nº 4", de Tanayev, considerada por su compositor como la primera por ser la más completa y cuyo adagio del segundo movimiento se interpretó en su entierro, en 1915, ha comentado Pletnev, quien además lo definió como "una gran figura" con la que se formaron Rachmaninov y de Prokofiev.

Éste último escribió en su diario que una vez coincidió con Tanayev en un tren de San Petesburgo a Moscú y que el rato que departió con él aprendió más que en todas las horas que estudió en el conservatorio, ha indicado Pletnev.

En la segunda parte del concierto, la orquesta interpretará la "Sinfonía Número 1", de Shostakovich, mientras que "La Obertura Rusa", de Golovanov, que en un principio figuraba para hoy, se ha trasladado a mañana para que el programa no resulte demasiado denso, según ha explicado el representante de la Orquesta Nacional Rusa, Carlos Crespo, quien ha añadido que ha motivado otros cambios en el orden de las piezas a interpretar.

Así, el programa del segundo concierto de mañana comenzará con "La Obertura Rusa"; continuará con el "Concierto para Piano y Orquesta Número 2", de Rachmaninov, que interpretará el pianista Denis Matsuev como solista; y seguirá en la segunda parte con la Suite para Ballet "El Perno" y la "Sinfonía Número 9", de Shostakovich.

Ambos programas se repetirán de nuevo los días 6 y 7 en el Auditorio de Santa Cruz de Tenerife, una sala conocida para Pletnev, pues ofreció un concierto de piano junto a la Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife en su inauguración en 2006.

El director del Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música (INAEM), Félix Palomero, asistirá a la clausura del festival, según ha informado hoy su directora, Candelaria Rodríguez, quien ha subrayado que se trata de una presencia "significativa", ya que el Ministerio de Cultura formará parte de su futura fundación.

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 4 (EUROPA PRESS)

El Festival de Música de Canarias ha comunicado en una nota que los conciertos que ofrecerá la Orquesta Nacional Rusa, dirigida por Mikhail Pletnev, hoy y mañana en el Auditorio Alfredo Kraus de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; y los días 6 y 7 en el Auditorio de Tenerife, sufrirán una pequeña modificación en el programa previsto.

Este cambio ha sido adoptado por decisión técnica de la formación rusa, invirtiendo el orden de las obras del primer y segundo concierto, además de trasladar la interpretación de la Obertura Rusa de Golovanov, prevista inicialmente en el primer programa, a la segunda audición de los días 5 y 7, quedando la programación de la siguiente forma:

Orquesta Nacional Rusa; director, Mikhail Pletnev; Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 4 de febrero; Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 6 de febrero; S. Taneyev: Sinfonía nº 4; D. Shostakovich: Sinfonía nº 1.

Orquesta Nacional Rusa; director, Mikhail Pletnev; Denis Matsuev, Piano; Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 5 de febrero; Santa cruz de Tenerife, 7 de febrero; N. Golovanov: Obertura Rusa; S. Rajmaninov: Concierto para piano nº 2; D. Shostakovich: Suite del Ballet El Perno, Sinfonía nº 9.