02/18/2026
There’s been some time since the venture of our two main beautiful projects- the art festivals in Tuscany and in Napa Valley.
Reminiscing the huge success of both festivals and their unique concept that belonged to both of us, mostly, to Mr. Wissman, I clearly see that the festival in Italy offered me, as an artist, the biggest freedom and opportunuty.
The debut night of the TSF ( in 2003) has been inaugurated with the premiere of my own, a half an hour long, work for cello and orchestra. Numerous other premieres and collaborations followed yearly, every August.
While, the Napa Valley festival in California ( founded by and KOtova in 2005) felt a bit restricting in a creative sense, due to the board of directors, a group of non- musical people. This situation led to the minimum appearances and musical exploration for me, as an artist, as well as to a couple of fabricated press releases that came from that same group.
In ten years, in Napa, I’ve performed only four concertos- Dvorak, Saint-Saens, Part and (substituted Dmitry Hvorostovsky) with Tchaikovsky rococo.
Although I’ve played a couple of recitals at the Festal Del Sole, including performing with Sarah Chang, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Vadim Kholodenko, (who are my own connections through friendship), and others, I haven’t done any premieres of other composers or any of my own compositions, while premiering new works used to be nearly an obsession of mine in the past.
Not to mention, it’s been a labour of love for me, serving as an artistic difector and performing at the festival , and not a financially lucrative undertaking. We’ve brought the foundation, knowledge and all the connections to the area and people involved, whose choice has become to repossess the assets.
Here is a collection of some of the pictures. These photos come from many different people, some are from me, the others are listed with the watermarks…
The overall experience and wonderful, unforgettable highlights of music played at both festivals, communication with people, musicians, actors, artists, writers, culinary chefs and vintners, and sharing inspiration on many levels made the strongest lasting, unforgetable impression on me! I’m very grateful for that.
Sorry, if I haven’t tagged every person in this collection of 80 pictures. Most of people in the photos are so well known, they won’t need presentation!
