The Apogee Foundation Awards Prizes and Grants to World Class Performing Artists in Russia
Apogee has awarded four of its most prestigious Premiere Awards to artists, instructors and directors in the former Soviet Union as part of its ongoing mission of promoting excellence in the performing arts.
New York (PRWEB) June 7, 2005 -- The Apogee Foundation has awarded four
Premiere Awards to outstanding performing arts professionals in Russia. The
Foundation’s Premiere Awards program is designed to foster the development of
human excellence in the performing arts by recognizing and supporting the
accomplishments of students and professionals who achieve world class
distinction. The granting of these rigorously judged, merit-based awards
demonstrates the Foundation’s unyielding commitment to the great artistic
traditions of Eastern Europe which are carried on and represented by their
recipients. For detailed information regarding Apogee’s Premiere Award program,
please refer to the Foundation’s website:
http://www.apogeefoundation.org/awards/premiere_awards.php
The
four Premiere Awards just distributed by Apogee’s Central FSU Bureau include two
Rising Star Prizes and two Achievement Awards. The Foundation's Rising Star
Prize is available to performing artists demonstrating extraordinary ability and
artistic distinction early in their professional life, whereas Achievement
Awards are available to leading instructors and directors who have consistently
realized the potential of world class performing artists over the course of
their careers.
Apogee's two Rising Star Prizes went to Boris Myasnikov
and Alexander Shpak. Myasnikov, who also received a Rising Star Prize in 2004 as
well as two Excellence Prizes from the Foundation for excellence in studies and
outstanding promise as a performing artist during the 1999/2000 and 2000/2001
academic years, was selected on the basis of his designation by the Perm State
Ballet School as Perm’s top 2004 graduate as well as his record of success in
winning major competitions in both Russia and Austria, as well as his ongoing
success in performances with the Stanislavsky Ballet in Moscow and around the
world. Shpak was selected on the basis of his designation by the Perm faculty as
Perm's top 2005 graduate as well as his record of success in winning major
competitions in both Russia and Germany during the preceding
year.
Simultaneously with these prizes to Myasnikov and Shpak, the
Foundation bestowed a special version of its Achievement Award upon their
instructor: Mr. Yuri Sidorov. Entitled the Yoel Plakht Honorarium for Excellence
in Teaching, this award is named in honour of one of Russia’s most legendary
dance instructors, Yoel Plakht, who taught for over 20 years at the Perm School
and served as its Artistic Director for nearly a decade. Sidorov, one of
Plakht’s many students who have become leading instructors throughout Russia and
around the world, was nominated for this award by the faculty of the School and
ratified by Apogee’s expert jury in recognition of his success in carrying on
Plakht’s legacy as the preeminent male instructor in central Russia, as
evidenced by his students' consistent achievement of world class
excellence.
In addition to the awards provided to Mr. Sidorov and his
former students, Apogee also announced its selection of Evgeny Subbotin to
receive the Foundation's Sergei Diaghilev Award for Outstanding Service to the
Performing Arts. Subbotin is President of the Arabesque Society and Founder of
the prestigious Perm International Ballet Competition, which under his
leadership have become the most important organizations and events of their kind
in the central and eastern regions of the former USSR.
The Foundation’s
Diaghilev Award is named in honour of Russia’s supreme performing arts
impresario: Sergei Diaghilev, who spent his formative years in Perm. Diaghilev
transformed the history of the performing arts through his introduction of
dancers such as Pavlova and Nijinsky to the world along with ground breaking
choreographers such as Fokine and Nijinsky as well as composers such as
Stravinsky. Apogee’s jury of specialists determined that Mr. Subbotin’s work in
the course of his career exemplified both Diaghilev’s historic legacy as well as
the Foundation’s ongoing mission of achieving the potential of human excellence
in the performing arts.
Commenting on these awards, Apogee President
Kenneth Schneider issued the following statement: “We are privileged on behalf
of the global community to recognize and honor such superlatively accomplished
individuals and their ongoing contributions to the performing arts. Each of
these distinguished professionals evidences the continuingly awesome potential
of traditions which in many ways are unmatched in the history of the world. In
doing so, they are realizing the apogee of human excellence which our Foundation
seeks to promote and foster.”
Information regarding Apogee’s mission and
work in the former Soviet Union and around the world can be found on the
Foundation’s website:
http://www.apogeefoundation.org/
as can further
information about the Perm State Ballet School, the top training institution of
its kind in the central and eastern FSU:
http://www.apogeefoundation.org/programs/existing_institutions.php
About
the Apogee Foundation:
The Apogee Foundation began activities in Russia in
1997 and was incorporated in the United States in 2004 as a New York based
not-for-profit corporation. Apogee is dedicated to the development of human
excellence in the performing arts. It supports cultural institutions and
individual artists, providing administrative, promotional, and financial support
to help talented individuals achieve their full potential, and enabling this
potential to be showcased to the world.
Contact:
The Apogee
Foundation
Kenneth Schneider, President
1001 Avenue of the Americas, 12th
Floor
New York, NY 10018-5411 (USA)
+1.646.722.0247 or
+1.888.APOGEE.8
Fax: +1.646.292.5101
www.ApogeeFoundation.org
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb248039.htm