Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Konservatoriya imeni Chaykovskovo)

Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Konservatoriya imeni Chaykovskovo) Review

The famous Tchaikovsky Music Competition takes place every four years in this prestigious music school's grand performance space. The main hall is currently closed due to renovation being done on the facade but is scheduled to reopen in time for the start of the next Competition, in June 2011. There are almost daily concerts in the school's various performance spaces, which include the smaller Rachmaninovsky and Maly Halls. Both of these host chamber music concerts. Tickets, almost always affordable, are sold at a small window directly on the sidewalk on Bolshaya Nikitskaya ulitsa east of the main hall. The conservatory was founded in 1866 and moved to its current location in 1870. Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, and Tchaikovsky are among the famous composers who worked here. There's a statue of Tchaikovsky designed by Vera Mukhina, a famous Soviet sculptor, in the semicircular park outside the main entrance. If you'd rather not attend a performance, can also just sit back with a coffee and listen to rehearsals and concerts from the summer garden of the Coffeemania here, near the Tchaikovsky statue.