Canceled once again due to the third pandemic wave in Europe since the beginning of 2021, the long-awaited 60th anniversary of the March Music Days will take place from September 17 until October 3. Despite the still serious situation, as organizers, we are trying to make sure the festival will be held In September – an effort that would be impossible without the support of the Ministry of Culture and our sponsors and donors. We owe this effort to the festival audience which in these difficult times is looking forward to its meetings with the music on the festival stage in Ruse.

The special guests of the festival in September are famous performers from Bulgaria and abroad, some of which will make their debut on the Bulgarian festival stage.

Of particular interest will certainly be the Bulgarian debut of the young and generously gifted instrumentalists – the cellist Aurelien Pascal – winner of Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels who will open the festival under the direction of Emil Tabakov with the First Cello Concerto this year, as well as the French pianist Lucas Debargue – prize-winner of the "Tchaikovsky" competition in Moscow who offers a very diverse exquisite repertoire from J. S. Bach to A. Scriabin.

An honor for every major international music forum is the presence of such world-renowned musicians as the debuting on the Bulgarian stage Jerusalem String Quartet, considered one of the best string quartets in the world today, as well as the famous Elena Bashkirova who will play a remarkable classical-romantic repertoire in a concert where often performed compositions alternate with such rare but extremely beautiful titles and works as Dvorak's Poetic Sound Paintings and F. Liszt's piano adaptation of Beethoven's famous vocal cycle "On the Distant Beloved".

We are especially looking forward to the talented Russian pianist Sergei Redkin who only a few months ago won the Second Prize of the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, and we will have the pleasure to hear him in the concert with the Sofia Soloists Chamber Ensemble conducted by Plamen Djurov performing a first-class repertoire – the astounding concert for piano and strings by A. Schnittke – one of the most beautiful and deeply expressive works of the composer.

We also present one of the frequent guests of our festival in recent years – the attractive SIGNUM Saxophone Quartet who always surprises us with their ideas. This time the quartet arrives in the company of one of the most eccentric figures on the contemporary German music scene, well known among the young people for his extravagant club actions – Kai Schumacher – the pianist with a very successful classical education whose solo performances today often become an act of pure musical-stylistic alchemy, in intoxicating mixtures of Dadaism, dance, avant-garde, jazz, and pop culture. The expectation is for an unusually provocative (especially for the youth audience) program of SIGNUM with the participation of Schumacher under the motto "Goldberg Nights" and music arrangements from Bach to Gershwin, Steve Reich, and Thelonious Monk.

The program also offers a meeting with the exciting Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son – the "Messiah of the piano" as journalists like to call her. We will hear her in the extremely attractive postromantic joint program with the exceptional Svetlin Rusev.

After a 16-year absence from the festival stage in Ruse, the Bulgarian opera prima Krassimira Stoyanova returns for the final festival evening as a soloist of the Ruse Festival Orchestra with the famous "Four Last Songs" by R. Strauss, conducted by Emil Tabakov.

In the same program is the other big event of the festival – the world premiere of the Violin Concerto written by Emil Tabakov especially for the Ruse Festival Orchestra and the violinist Svetlin Rusev.

The repertoire challenges of the upcoming festival do not end with what has been said so far. The visit of the BNR Orchestra under the direction of Mark Kadin offers a very nice repertoire invention on the theme of "Rhapsodies" with favorite genre works by V. Stoyanov, Debussy, Liszt, Vladigerov, and Enescu.

The extravagant and extremely talented duo of Vivi Vassileva and the Brazilian guitarist Lucas Campara Diniz on March 18 also offers a premiere program of extremely elegant original arrangements of works from Bach to Piazzolla.

The ensemble music outlines a very rich and exciting territory within the festival program. For example, the refined German-Austrian spirit in the Frosch String Quartet program naturally connects the restless lyrics of Schumann's famous piano quintet with the expression of Zemlinsky's string quartet created almost a century later. This program will also meet us with the extremely talented young Bulgarian pianist Emanuil Ivanov – the absolute winner of the Busoni Competition in Italy, whose debut at the festival in Ruse we highly expect.

A very interesting ensemble program is offered by the Philharmonica String Quartet in a partnership with one of the best Bulgarian flutists Yavor Zhelev. The interesting thing about this program is that Mozart's famous but also rarely performed flute quartets fall into a very elegant lyrical connotation with Ravel's very famous string quartet.

The ensemble concerts will meet us again with the extraordinary artistic energy of one of the most sought-after clarinetists today – the Israeli Sharon Kam who will partner with the Jerusalem String Quartet in one of the most beautiful works in Brahms' ensemble literature – his Clarinet Quintet.

The Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Nayden Todorov and the great Bulgarian violinist Mincho Minchev also offer a very stylish, attractive to the audience and completely romantic program with works by Brahms and Mendelssohn.

This year's participation of the Musica Nova Ensemble under the direction of Dragomir Yossifov is traditionally strong, with a program that promises to become a special festival event with a series of world and Bulgarian premieres of works by such iconic figures in the European and Bulgarian music at the turn of the 21st century as A. Vieru, G. Ustvolskaya, B. Spasov, S. Pironkov, Jr., A. Schnittke, A. Webern.

The modern context of the festival program is complemented by two evenings dedicated to jazz. The first one offers a concert of the wonderful young musicians from Teodor Petkov Trio who will present their album Bake a Biscuit while the second jazz evening on October 2 will meet us with the jazz sextet of Mikhail Yosifov who gathered his talented graduates from NMA "Pancho Vladigerov" in a program dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the academy.

The parallel festival program is not just a collection of events but also a good way to complement the general cultural context of the festival which has always sought intersections with other artistic dimensions. 

Highlights here are the specially prepared by the State Archives Ruse documentary exhibition for the first 20 years of the festival; the art contest – exhibition with the meaningful title "Pause ..."; the exhibition of the State Opera Ruse "Dmitry Shostakovich in Ruse and in Bulgaria 1958 - 1965". As a part of the accompanying program, the book "German – Bulgarian and Bulgarian – German Music Dictionary" published by Julian Kuyumdzhiev and Polina Kuyumdzhieva will be presented.