In November 2022, the Scriabin Society of America (SSA) organized a celebration of Alexander Scriabin’s sesquicentennial anniversary, “International Scriabin 150 Festival”. Held virtually via Zoom, this festival featured a wide variety of performances and presentations. The festival was organized by the SSA executive leadership: Dmitry Rachmanov, President; Matthew Bengtson, Vice-President; Farhan Malik, Treasurer; James Palmer, Secretary; and Sherry Grant, International Liaison.
Highlights of this festival included masterclasses given by Anatole Leikin and Jerome Lowenthal and lectures by noted scholars Sean Day, Rebecca Mitchell, Jay Reise, David Proud, Harlow Robinson, and Murray Stentiford on a broad array of topics, including musicological scholarship, philosophy, theosophy, and synesthesia. The festival featured performances by outstanding piano students of today and by prize-winning pianists Anna Fedorova, Bruno Vlahek, and Alexey Chernov. The SSA executive officers each shared a special presentation, including performances by Dmitry Rachmanov and Matthew Bengtson, a lecture-recital by James Palmer, a lecture on pioneering Scriabin recordings by Farhan Malik, and a reading of poetry for Scriabin written by Sherry Grant. The festival also featured engaging presentations from visual artist Bobbi Bicker collaborating with pianist Yoon Seok Shin (Young Steinway Artist) and poet Sherry Grant; pianist Martin Kaptein (founder of the Scriabin Club); composer-orchestrator Thomas Goss; haiku poet Owen Bullock; jazz pianist Tomás Jonsson improvising on Scriabin’s music; Rae de Lisle on injury prevention; and Joe Patrych on recording Scriabin’s music. True to Scriabin’s penchant for integrating different art forms, the festival also featured a short-form poetry reading based on Scriabin’s music by John Stevenson, Ron C. Moss, Garry Gay and John Thompson. The festival concluded with the world premiere of Scriabin in the Himalayas, a film by Jarek Kotomski documenting the 2015 festival that celebrated Scriabin’s legendary Mysterium. This film features performances by Matthew Bengtson.
