Baikal Ice Music-2024: Playing on Ice Hummocks in Search of Unique Rhythms
On March 4, INRTU creative teams opened the Baikal Ice Music-2024 festival. INRTU students improvised on ice hummocks, refining their rhythmic and musical skills. This time they experimented near the village of Bolshoye Goloustnoye.
The project was launched in 2012. Then the drummers of the Ethnobit ethnic percussion studio, led by Natalia Vlasevskaya, published a video of playing on hummocks on YouTube. Since then the event has become a tradition. Every year INRTU students go to the shore of Lake Baikal to create music in an unusual way, to boost their positivity and get natural power before the main creative event - the Student Spring Festival.
According to Natalia Vlasevskaya, for several years in a row the Baikal Ice Music participants have not come across such beautiful ice hummocks as at the 2012 festival. This time they were lucky in every way: the weather was favorable, and the aesthetics and melody of the ice were at their best.
The festival was attended by 12 people, including students and graduates of INRTU. Among the newcomers were vocalists from the Pop Vocal Studio. Thanks to the trip some INRTU students saw winter Baikal for the first time.
In the first block of the festival program the drummers improvised, putting into practice the skills they had learned earlier. Then everyone chose a hummock site and selected individual rhythms. The participants also played fragments of the mastered pieces, including a new composition "Samurai".
The hummocks in Bolshoye Goloustnoye are usually quite thick. Therefore, it is more comfortable to play on them with drumsticks. However, the participants of Baikal Ice Music-2024 found thin ice blocks. They are the most suitable for playing by hand, which allows you to feel the force of the blow and creates a unique sound.
"The young people played with great enthusiasm. This was facilitated by the energy of Baikal, its natural silence, which, according to one of our participants, "does not press, but helps the soul to rest," said Natalia Vlasevskaya.
Yulia Vdovina, a singer from the Pop Vocal Studio, visited the festival for the first time. She noted that the trip had brought a lot of new emotions:
"It was an unusual experience, I felt unity with the people around me. Together with them I was involved in the creation of music on the background of beautiful nature".
Photo of the Festival participants
