'The best songs of all time'

In Catalonia, the Christmas holidays end right after the arrival of the Three Wise Men. In Russia, on the other hand, the holidays keep going a few days after that because there are two New Year's celebrations: New Year's Eve, which is the same in the whole Western world — as a consequence of the adoption of the Gregorian calendar — and Old Year's Eve, which takes place on 14 January, according to the Julian calendar traditionally followed by the Orthodox Church.

On the eve of the Old New Year, on 13 January, the Russian House invites all lovers of Soviet music to a concert of The Greatest Songs of All Time at 7 p.m. with baritone Oleg Aleksandrov and pianist Elena Kolesnikova.

Aleksandrov — a descendant of this famous lineage of composers — will perform the favourite songs of Soviet composers Aleksandra Pakhmutova, Arno Babajanian, Eduard Kolmanovski, Matvei Blanter, Tikhon Khrennikov and Muslim Magomayev. Aleksandrov has mastered a wide range of genres: opera and baroque music, Neapolitan songs and zarzuelas, and 20th-century Russian folk music. In addition, the baritone sits on the jury of several classical music competitions and runs a vocal school between Moscow and Salzburg, which aims to maintain the bel canto tradition.

Elena Kolesnikova graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg, where she worked as a teacher until 2000. Since 2001 she has collaborated with the Conservatori Superior del Liceu as a repertoire teacher and, since 2008, as a piano teacher. In addition to having performed, among many other venues, at the Palau de la Música Catalana and the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Kolesnikova has been the coordinator of the festival Nits d'Òpera in Ibiza, and correspondent for the magazine Òpera Actual in St. Petersburg.

The concert will begin at seven sharp, so the audience is asked to arrive 15 minutes before start. Tickets cost 10 euros and can be purchased here.