{"id":57956,"date":"2025-11-11T13:32:43","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T13:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/?p=57956"},"modified":"2026-01-14T23:39:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T23:39:42","slug":"roman-minz-restoring-justice-has-special-meaning-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/roman-minz-restoring-justice-has-special-meaning-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Roman Mints: \u201cRestoring justice has special meaning for me\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Alexander Panov<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

What does teaching mean to you?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I often meet people who say, \u201cTeaching is terribly hard and exhausting.\u201d
For me, teaching turned out to be a natural part of who I am \u2014 though I never originally planned to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Karina Gradusova<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

So it was a forced step?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was young, I was an assistant to my professor, Felix Andrievsky, so I spent a lot of time in his lessons. I had lived here [in the UK] since 1994, but later I ended up in Moscow, where I never really saw myself within the teaching system. I just couldn\u2019t stand the atmosphere.
The only thing I did there was teach chamber ensemble \u2014 a subject much freer than violin. And I did it mainly so that I could offer children an alternative to the reality I saw around me. But that didn\u2019t last long; the environment simply rejected me. The years I spent in Britain made me a different person.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Nina Ai-Artyan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Is there a big difference between that environment and this one?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mentality is completely different. Musical education reflects the general mentality of a society! Here, coercion has long been discouraged.
Yes, it\u2019s a double-edged sword \u2014 the overall level may not be as high, but people\u2019s internal sense of freedom is different.
When I hear my students answer me with, \u201cI think this should be done differently,\u201d I realize I didn\u2019t have that inner freedom before I first left Russia.
And that\u2019s good! You shouldn\u2019t have a sixteen-ton weight pressing down on you all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of my students came from what you might call post-Soviet schools. I keep telling them: I don\u2019t need you to play \u201ccorrectly.\u201d You\u2019re not playing to fulfill the markings on the page. You can\u2019t be a slave to those little symbols. And most importantly \u2014 once you start thinking musically, truly playing music, everything becomes easier.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Pavel Smertin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Soviet and post-Soviet system of music education is built like this: countless people struggle to reach the top, and whoever survives deserves praise. But many don\u2019t survive, and no one cares about their fate. The stronger ones make it and become somebody. The system works \u2014 it produces great musicians. But to grow out of it, you need tremendous strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Britain, about 80% of children play musical instruments at an amateur level \u2014 that kind of fertile environment simply doesn\u2019t exist in Russia. There, it\u2019s a narrow circle where parents force their children to study music \u2014 a sort of intellectual family pastime. But here you meet truly talented people who, thanks to their ability and a good teacher at the right moment, grow into major musicians.
Of course, there\u2019s no longer a conveyor belt like in the Soviet Union. There have been attempts to borrow from that experience: for instance, the Menuhin School is modeled directly on the Moscow Central Music School \u2014 no one even hid that fact. Yehudi Menuhin himself visited Moscow, saw the CMS, and happened to attend a lesson with my professor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Dmitri Yaroslavtsev<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Photo by Dmitri Yaroslavtsev<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Your new album Kol Nidre is coming out soon. That\u2019s the name of the text recited on Yom Kippur, right?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before releasing the album, I really dug deep into the subject to understand it. Kol Nidre is a strange text \u2014 if you\u2019re outside the tradition, it\u2019s hard to grasp, and even within Judaism, it\u2019s interpreted differently.
It\u2019s often been used to attack Jews, because the text essentially says, \u201cThe vows I make shall be null and void.\u201d It\u2019s not even a prayer in essence. I read that it\u2019s more like a legal formula, a declaration in Aramaic \u2014 the spoken language of the time.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Svetlana Minaeva<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

From what I understand, in Judaism making vows is considered a bad idea, because failing to keep a vow is a grave sin.
So you\u2019re not supposed to make them \u2014 and when a person acknowledges their own weakness at the start of the year and says, \u201cIf I stumble, it\u2019s not intentional,\u201d that\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Nina Ai-Artyan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But that\u2019s not what mattered most to me. What mattered were the threads that tie me to who I am. I didn\u2019t grow up in a religious environment \u2014 we didn\u2019t speak Yiddish at home \u2014 but certain things were still preserved.
For example, I had a record where Hungarian Jews sang Kol Nidre, or I\u2019d go to a concert and hear that music performed. My parents would set the table for Passover and say a few words, because it mattered to them. There were pastries for Purim.
These fragments of a culture that had died within a single family \u2014 that\u2019s what shapes you. I now realize that these little things define that part of me called identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kol Nidre melody has long entered European music \u2014 it somehow stuck. On my record, there\u2019s a Kol Nidre by Mikhail Erdenko, from the famous Gypsy musical dynasty. He dedicated the piece to Leo Tolstoy \u2014 when Erdenko visited him, Tolstoy said, \u201cLet the old man weep \u2014 play Kol Nidre.\u201d
And that image \u2014 a Romani-born classical violinist playing a Jewish prayer for the great Russian writer in Yasnaya Polyana, and Tolstoy weeping \u2014 that, to me, sums up who I am.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Bruce Fleming<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Would you call this album contemporary classical music?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wouldn\u2019t. It sits at the intersection of genres. The title piece is by John Zorn, a legend of the avant-garde jazz scene. He sometimes writes music in notation, but he comes from a completely different world.
As for other pieces, there\u2019s a bit of this, a bit of that \u2014 all of them have personal meaning to me. But I try not to play them too \u201cacademically.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Nina Ai-Artyan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Which brings us back to the question of notation\u2026<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes \u2014 these are things you can\u2019t write down.
The deification of the composer \u2014 putting him on a pedestal as an untouchable figure \u2014 really only appeared in the 19th century. Before that, such idolization didn\u2019t exist at all. So there wasn\u2019t this trembling reverence toward written notes.
Notation only captured part of the music. If you listen to recordings of Clara Schumann\u2019s students \u2014 who actually heard Brahms play \u2014 you\u2019ll hear that their performance has nothing to do with simply \u201cplaying what\u2019s written.\u201d
Composers wrote knowing that no one would play it the way we do today\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026meaning strictly by the book and the metronome?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Nina Ai-Artyan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Exactly. Because when a composer indicated a metronome mark, it was just an approximate guide to the movement he had in mind.
But within that movement, there can\u2019t be two identical phrases \u2014 and there can be no blind obedience to the metronome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Music Festival in London isn\u2019t the first festival you\u2019ve organized.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No \u2014 the first was back in the 1990s in Moscow with my friend Dmitry Bulgakov. He was 18, I was 20 \u2014 we were just kids.
The festival was called Return (Vozvrashchenie). It lasted 25 years and became a real institution, loved by many. But at first, it was just this chaotic idea:
\u201cLet\u2019s do a festival?\u201d
\u201cSure!\u201d
\u201cHey, Vasya, will you play?\u201d
\u201cYeah, I\u2019ll play!\u201d
No one told us about the difficulties \u2014 so there weren\u2019t any.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Bruce Fleming<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In later years we even did crowdfunding \u2014 people not only bought tickets, they supported the festival financially. That was important not just for the money, but because it showed that people cared. Their 500 rubles said: \u201cThis matters to me.\u201d
But everything in life has its time, and the time of Return ended \u2014 right as the war began. The reality I had tried to ignore caught up with me.
I left Russia, and while I was hanging in that emotional limbo, I thought maybe I should just focus on teaching. But it\u2019s hard to run away from yourself \u2014 and I\u2019m someone who needs to create things, to make events happen, for myself and for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve always been amazed that people see someone incredibly talented and, even if they have the means, don\u2019t help them \u2014 not because they don\u2019t want to, but because it just doesn\u2019t occur to them.
But that\u2019s not how I\u2019m wired. I\u2019ve stopped being ashamed of it. If I can make something happen \u2014 I do it, even if it hurts my \u201cimage\u201d as a musician.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seriously? It hurts your image?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course! If you organize things, people think of you as an organizer, not a musician.
But my life has taught me: when you have an idea, make it happen \u2014 whether it\u2019s a performance, a commission, or any other project.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Karina Gradusova<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One of the impulses behind Another Music Festival actually came during the pandemic.
I\u2019ve got a long-running chat group with a few close friends. One day, during lockdown, composer Alexey Kurbatovcomplained to violist Mikhail Rudoy: \u201cI have no inspiration, no work, no money.\u201d
Misha said, \u201cThen I\u2019ll commission a piece from you. Write a piano quartet.\u201d
So Alexey wrote it. Then the war started\u2026 and five years later, the piece still hadn\u2019t been performed.
When I learned about it, I decided it must be premiered \u2014 with Misha performing, since it\u2019s dedicated to him. I built the festival program around that premiere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turned out that pianist Vadym Kholodenko, another member of the chat and a great artist, happened to be performing in the UK and could arrive two days early to play the quartet.
Misha agreed to come too. The only person refusing to come was the composer \u2014 he didn\u2019t want to apply for a visa!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there a difference between organizing a festival in the UK and in Russia?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably, yes.
In the last years of Return, the festival had such a reputation that some things were easy \u2014 but in Russia, you always run into absurd obstacles. Always. You\u2019re constantly fighting something.
For example, for years we sold booklets before concerts, and then suddenly, without warning, we were told that by order of the rector, we couldn\u2019t sell them anymore \u2014 nor could we put out a donation box. So at the final festival, we just handed them out for free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by Bruce Fleming<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Photo by Dmitri Yaroslavtsev<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In Britain, the main issue is practical: in Moscow, I could find rehearsal space through connections; here, you just have to raise money to rent it.
The Moscow festival was also famous for having no artist fees \u2014 everyone played out of pure enthusiasm. Many performers came because, although they had successful careers, the chance to perform at the legendary Moscow Conservatory was tempting, and we gave them that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, it\u2019s similar \u2014 you have to build relationships, make people want to work with you. If you\u2019ve got lots of money, you can just buy everything, sure \u2014 but if you don\u2019t, you have to build trust.
I managed to connect with St John\u2019s Waterloo, where the festival will take place. I showed them what I can do by organizing a charity concert last year \u2014 they saw how it went and what kind of impact it had. So now they see value in having me there \u2014 it\u2019s a mutually beneficial partnership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is it called Another Music Festival?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because in London there\u2019s so much happening every day with big stars. If you say you\u2019re organizing a festival, the first reaction is always: \u201cWhat, another one?\u201d
So I answer: \u201cYes \u2014 another one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Karina Gradusova<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But also, for many of us who were broken by the events of 2022, the search for self-definition is deeply relevant. Something that was yours has been taken away. Someone will say, \u201cNo one took it \u2014 you did it yourself,\u201d but that\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I often meet people who\u2019ve lost everything \u2014 for Russians, yes, it\u2019s partly a choice. But most of my Ukrainian students lost what they had by force \u2014 because they were attacked, had to flee, and so on. Many have PTSD in varying degrees; some just break down in tears during a lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Pavel Smertin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

That\u2019s why I decided the first Another Music Festival would focus on the theme of immigrants. It\u2019s such a rich topic. The program includes, for example, a 16th-century English composer who fled England for being Catholic and persecuted. Or Rachmaninoff, or Stravinsky.
Or Stefania Turkewich, the first Ukrainian female composer \u2014 an extraordinary figure. After World War II, she lived here in Britain, constantly sending her works to competitions, but no one ever accepted them. This country never really embraced her.
When you try to find her violin sonata \u2014 which one of my Ukrainian students will play \u2014 you\u2019ll find only a single performance on YouTube, even in Ukraine. People give lectures about her, but most of her music remains unperformed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the festival performers are many top-level musicians: Kristina Blaumane, principal cellist of the London Philharmonic Orchestra; Katya Apekisheva, professor at Guildhall; Natalia Lomeiko and Yuri Zhislin, professors at the Royal College; Vadym Kholodenko, as I mentioned; and many wonderful new colleagues like Hilary Cronin, Francis Gash, and Milena Simovi\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo by Bruce Fleming<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

And one more thing matters to me: recently, the small circle of Russian \u00e9migr\u00e9 intellectuals celebrated the anniversary of composer Leonid Desyatnikov, with whom I\u2019ve long collaborated.
I find it strange that one of his finest works, The Leaden Echo, written on a text by Gerard Manley Hopkins, has never been performed here \u2014 even though that canonical text has been set to music many times.
I\u2019ve heard several versions, and I\u2019m convinced no one has captured it as perfectly as Desyatnikov did. It\u2019s just wrong that such a work hasn\u2019t been heard in the land of Hopkins himself.
So presenting it will be, for me, an act of restoring justice \u2014 which, come to think of it, is a recurring theme of this entire festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"