The Festival Readings Sochi 2018

The 8th edition of the Festival Readings took place in Sochi, Russia, from the 16th to the 18th of February 2018, in collaboration with the Winter International Arts Festival. We were delighted to have the following speakers among us for the full 3 days: Tom Creed (Ireland), Kim Whitener (USA) and Bernard Faivre d’Arcier (France).

The Festival Readings Sochi 2017 are jointly organised by The Festival Academy (an initiative of the European Festivals Association) and the Winter Arts International Festival (WIAFS).

The Winter Arts International Festival was founded in 2007 in the capital of XXII Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games by the Russian Concert Agency. Yuri Bashmet, Sochi 2014 Ambassador, is Artistic Director of the Festival. Growing in size every year and developing the programmes, the festival offers local and regional audiences an outstanding selection of events and unique opportunities to meet a wide range of arts. Since 2007 the festival has presented different programmes of classical music, jazz, opera, classical ballet, drama theatre, popular music, cinema as well as the exhibitions of audio-visual arts, and jewellery. Many Russian and international artists have joined the celebration of the arts on the Black Sea coast. With a long list of globally renowned performers, the 2008 Grammy Award-winning Moscow Soloists Chamber Ensemble and the state symphony Orchestra Novaya Rossiya (New Russia) are the resident orchestras of the festival. The festival is organised with the financial support from the government of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Culture of Russian Federation, the Organising Committee of Sochi 2014, and the administration of the city of Sochi.

The Festival Readings Sochi 2018 is part of the EFA RISE project implemented with the support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.