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More Amore 2014
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July 26, 12:00
Hermitage Garden 
More Amore is the annual summer festival of "Seasons of Life" magazine, the easiest, beautiful and musical event in Moscow. The Lithuanian singer, poet and musician Alina Orlova and Baltic Light Orchestra conducted by renowned conductor, composer, pianist and winner of international competitions Alexandras Simelis will be the headliner of the festival. Among other participants are Russian band Rekevin and solo project of Pavel Artemiev. There will be cafes, kids playground, design market and other entertainments at the festival area in Hermitage Garden.
Alina Orlova (Lithuania)
 Who doesn't love a quirky girl with a piano? The past 30 years of rock music have given us Kate Bush, Tori Amos, and Regina Spektor, each garnering comparisons to one another to be fiercely denied and disputed by their devoted followers. And each of the aforementioned women, as well as the countless they have inspired, has managed to endear themselves to listeners in some unique way that encourages such loyalties and debates. Alina Orlova, the latest quirky girl with a piano awaiting her devotees, distinguishes herself primarily with Eastern European influences in what are otherwise slightly left of mainstream pop songs. Her full length debut, Laukinis Suo Dingo, (which literally translates from Lithuanian as Dog Gone Wild), is peppered with accordion jaunts, sampled drums, and glockenspiels, but it is, essentially, the insistent piano that drives it forward. There is very little in the way of progression within her songs. Though dramatic, they are kept incredibly brief, with some coming in at just over a minute. Without time to allow suspense to build up, most of them give you all they have to give at the outset. Though her arrangements are minimalist, her sound is expansive. There is the illusion of lush orchestration when it is often simply Orlova and her piano, and whatever subtle accent instruments accompany them. This works inversely as well. On the most playful track, "Transatlantic Love", the staccato of a ukulele (because ukulele will be ubiquitous to the '10s in the same way cowbell terrorised the '00s) and abbreviated piano chords feel more contained than her sparser orchestrations. The Lithuania-born Orlova sings primarily in the language of her home country, with a few English endeavours. And to share the ignorance of one who is accustomed to listening to music almost exclusively in languages she understands, something is gained by listening to lyrics you can't figure out. For the majority of the album, Orlova's voice trips and trills as an independent instrument. It doesn't really matter whether or not you understand the lyrics of songs like "Nesvarbu" or "Ramuma"; regardless of what Orlova is saying, she is still successfully conveying a level of emotion and intensity you can connect to. The most perplexing moment of the album comes on "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", which is not an attempt at being cutesy, but rather the familiar childhood lyrics set to Orlova's composition. No matter how unrecognisable the tune, it's hard to get past the fact that she's singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". If she were singing in Lithuanian, the song wouldn't bare any resemblance to the nursery rhyme, but in English no amount of vocal effects can divert the distraction. It is a testament to Orlova's quirk - or perhaps a test of tolerance of the listener - that she tries to spin something unique from something so commonplace. But for a debut, she has a pretty solid grasp on her limits. If given the chance, Orlova is bound to find a way to contort the familiar from every angle. Alina Orlova received positive recognition both worldwide and in Lithuania where she is seen as a huge success - her "cozy" gigs are highly anticipated there. According to music critics, Orlova has a "high-trilling voice and a unique line in exhilaratingly dark, Baltic folk pop." Orlova has become her country's most popular alternative songwriter (as well as a successful painter). Noticed by the Travis frontman Fran Healy, Alina's song "Vaiduokliai" was picked up as one of the seven tracks to be featured on the digital-only EP, entitled "Play. Stop. Rewind" released worldwide by LIPA Records. Her debut album The Wild Dog Dingo named after a Russian book by Ruvim Fraerman for school children about teenage love was released under the MetroMusic label and presented in Vilnius St. Catherine church on January 22; a week later she had a similar concert in Kaunas State Drama Theatre. Later the same year Orlova held concerts in Russia, London, Liverpool.
Rekevin (Russia)
 The Russian band Rekevin was formed in Moscow in 2005, turning into a collaboration of musicians who were eager to make quiet intelligent music based on trip-hop and lounge. All band members eventually found each other on the Internet and began to do something very new for the Russian music of that time. In January 2008, Rekevin launched their debut album A Peacock which was well received both by critics and the public. Besides, the album was produced entirely by the group. A Peacock was followed by live performances at the Russian and Ukranian most important international festivals, Stereoleto and the Koktebel Jazz Festival, where Rekevin shared the stage with Massive Attack, Red Snapper, and other world-known groups. With the self-release of the second album Nulukatuk in March 2009, Rekevin firmly established themselves as a band independent of any record labels. During their studio work on the album, musicians used vintage instruments such as Fender Rhodes, Minimoog, a theremin, Soviet analog synthesizers Ritm-2 and Aelita. Also, ? string quartet was invited to take part in record of some tracks. Two years later, in April 2011, Rekevin presented an EP Embarassed after which the group took a break in recording process in order to write new songs and play live. Rekevin's music combines melancholic downtempo and gentle acid jazz, played exceptionally live and backed by the emotional lyrics and voice of the charming singer Ksenia. "Their strikingly beautiful music combines with the European quality of the sound. It’s hard to believe that they come from Moscow and not from Bristol."
Pavel Artemiev (Russia)
 Pavel Artemev is a film and theatre actor, musician and model. A trombonist of the Milan Giuseppe Verdi Conservatoire in Como. In Moscow, he studied Japanese at the Institute of Africa and Asia. In 2001, he entered a national talent-show "Star Factory" akin to American Idol, where he formed the famous boys-band Roots. Major success followed, including soundtrack work for widely recognized TV series and big-screen comedies. One of the original members, Artemiev would eventually leave the ensemble in 2010, however, and then form a solo project in 2010 named in his honor. Since 2009, he has worked with the Praktika Theatre. He has acted in several films, including Volunteer, Astra, I Love You, Divorce, Love - Don't Love, and Intimate Places. Today Pavel is the leader of rock-band Artemiev. Over the last three years, Artemiev has not seen the workload lessen in his new, qualitatively different career. "There's no way you'd call the band a hobby! That's something you do in your free time - and I don't have any..." Much effort is invested not only in recording and on-stage enterprise, but also in fundraising efforts through young, domestic crowdsourcing platforms. In a discussion with one of those funding projects Pavel Artemiev admitted that his workday involves the tough task of promoting an ensemble ex nihilo, whilst he is (still) associated in the public's mind with a more superficial, primetime aesthetic. "I'd be an idiot if I thought people would suddenly accept me as a totally different musician." He remains, therefore, in between two fundamentally different biographies. The first of them went far beyond entertainment into what Artemiev has called "the cruel realities" of national show-business. He said that current performances "aren't conducted in stadia - yet - but we're certainly not playing in anybody's basement, either. We're slowly moving on. The thing is that music television doesn't actually exist any more (it's merely a cable service today). I still get invited onto all kinds of TV broadcasts - cooking shows, for example. I really dislike that, however; I've always hated it. Our videos might be adopted by some media stations, but not the national ones... As for radio, the material we play as "Artemiev" doesn't fit into their current formats. We've no real niche position on today's radio at all."
Lineup:
18:00 - Rekevin
19:00 - Artemiev
20:00 - Alina Orlova and Baltic Light Orchestra
More info
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