Valery Gergiev will be presenting the prize-winners of the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition at the Mikkeli Festival

From 3 to 5 July Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra will perform a series of concerts in Mikkeli at the XXVIII Gergiev Festival. Valery Gergiev is the festival's Artistic Director. Alongside the Mariinsky Orchestra, the tour will feature prize-winners of the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition, which ran from 17 to 29 June in Moscow and St Petersburg. For the young musicians, this will be their first tour in their new status as prize-winners.

On 3 July, together with the Mariinsky Orchestra at the Mikkeli Concert Hall, there will be a performance by Alexandre Kantorow (piano), recipient of the Grand Prix, 1^st prize and Gold Medal at the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition. He will perform the solo in Franz Liszt's Piano Concerto No 2. The programme also includes the introduction to Act I from Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin and Anton Bruckner's Seventh Symphony. There will be a live broadcast of the concert by Finland's Yle radio and TV company.

On 4 July the Mariinsky Orchestra will be joined by Sergei Dogadin (recipient of the 1^st prize in the "violin" category at the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition) and Finnish cellist Senja Rummukainen (recipient of the 6^th prize). The programme will include Jean Sibelius' Second Symphony and works by Pyotr Tchaikovsky – Valse-Scherzo and Méditation (soloist – Sergei Dogadin) and Variations on a Rococo Theme (soloist – Senja Rummukainen).

The festival ends on 5 July with a grand gala concert of prize-winners of the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition in the category "solo singing" and the Mariinsky Orchestra at Mikkeli Cathedral, which seats 1200 people. Valery Gergiev will be conducting.

The programme of the XXVIII Gergiev Festival also includes performances by Finnish musicians, among them the Vivo Symphony Orchestra, the St. Michel Strings chamber orchestra, pianist Irina Zakharenkova and students from Mikkeli music schools in addition to lectures and seminars. The festival will host a now-traditional sporting event – a football match between the Mikkeli and Mariinsky Theatre teams. The match will take place on 5 July at 12:00 at the Stadium Urski. Entry to the football match is free.

After the close of the festival in Mikkeli, the Mariinsky Orchestra will depart for Germany, where the musicians will be appearing at the Sommerfestspiele at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, which runs from 6 to 14 July.