On August 17, 2025, as part of the White Steamer National Children Musical Charitable Festival, the concert was held at the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre.
The best compositions loved by many generations, including music from Soviet and foreign feature films and animated cartoons, classical masterpieces and folk songs, were on the programme of the concert “Childhood”. The concert reflected various sides of childhood such as fairy tales, everyday school life, carefree games, motherly love, childhood in wartime, strong friendship, and love of country.
The concert was attended by such opera soloists as Lyubov Petrova, Igor Morozov, Nikolay Didenko, and Oleg Didenko, jazz singer Maria Vinogradova, the vocal group Quartet PRO, the White Steamer Festival chorus, and the Festival instrumental group under the leadership of Alexander Pokidchenko. Host of the concert: Dmitry Guberniev. Artistic Director of the White Steamer Festival: Nikolay Didenko.
The White Steamer Children Musical Festival is a unique social project which has no analogues and in which children with a difficult past take part, who have gone through a competitive selection throughout Russia. When selecting participants, particular attention is given to children who are physically challenged, disabled or made orphans and who are raised in single-parent, low-income or large families or lost their fathers during the Special Military Operation. For the Festival’s 20-year history over 10,000 musically gifted children have taken part in it. With support from the White Steamer Foundation, many of them have entered the best music educational institutions in Russia.
The Festival goes on in the form of intensive creative sessions which include choral and vocal classes, master classes and meetings with leading cultural figures. In three weeks of vocal and choral classes, Festival teachers together with children prepare a large-scale profound programme. Any session culminates in gala concerts. In 2025, such gala concerts are to be given in Vladivostok, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Khabarovsk, and Kazan. The final concert will take place on the Historic Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
