Vasily returned to Liverpool at the start of July to conduct the RLPO for White Nights, which has become a tradition in the city. Reflecting on the story behind these concerts, Vasily comments: “It’s always great to return to Liverpool, it’s one of my homes and I still have a warm bond with the Orchestra. There’s still a lot of ideas which the orchestra shares from my time with them and White Nights is a series of concerts, which I started many years ago. There was always a concert in this period of the summer, which is a period of White Nights in St Petersburg. It’s a time of year when the sun goes down at around 1.30am in the morning and rises again around 3am. It never quite gets dark; instead there is a greyness, which as a setting to the classical architecture, creates a unique atmosphere.
“Composers, starting from Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Rimsky Korsakov were obsessed with this idea of the very special atmosphere of White Knights – and, over the years at Liverpool, I have tried to recreate that, bringing some of those elements to life at the very beginning of this festival. We have also played music which related to the same idea from around the world.”
