Anna Vilenskaya. European Tour from 14 to 26 November 2026

Anna Vilenskaya is a musicologist, lecturer, and advocate for classical and contemporary music. She has a knack for explaining complex topics in a simple, engaging, and humorous way, helping listeners hear music in a new light and understand how it works. 

Topic: Disco: The Rise and Fall of the 20th Century’s Most Influential Genre 
Disco is the genre that gave rise to nearly all dance and electronic music. At the height of its popularity, disco was everywhere. But its fate was altered by an unprecedented event: disco became the only musical genre against which a protest was launched. In this lecture, we’ll explore how disco came to be and how it came to an end. 

Topic: How Global Catastrophes Influence Musical Evolution 
Epidemics, natural disasters, and wars influence the economy, politics, and technological progress. But what about music? In this lecture, we’ll explore how Napoleon changed chords and rhythms, what the tragedy of September 9 brought to music, how World War II influenced background music, how Messiaen composed music in a concentration camp, and what Chopin and anime have to do with it. 

Topic: The Music of the Future: Fears That Have Already Come True, and New Hopes
At various times, listeners and composers have feared synthetic music in its various forms—from the mechanical piano to Artificial Intelligence. In this lecture, we’ll discuss which of these fears have come true, whether a musical “Brave New World” has arrived, what the unexpected success of Angine de Poitrine has to do with it, how TikTok is changing the form of songs, and we’ll also develop a hypothesis about what music might look like in the near future.

Topic: Who Invented Conductors, and What Are They Actually Paid For?
People usually realize that a conductor isn’t paid just to wave a baton during a concert. But what exactly do they do that makes the profession of conducting so complex and highly paid? How does a conductor help an orchestra rehearse, given that the orchestra is already made up of professional musicians? Who was the first professional conductor in history? Does a conductor have a distinctive style, and how can you recognize it? We’ll discuss all of this during the lecture.

Topic: A Day of Symphonic Music with Anna Vilenskaya (a unique format)
Spend a day with symphonic music and Anna Vilenskaya: first, we’ll figure out what to listen to and how, then we’ll go to a concert, and afterward we’ll discuss what we heard over dinner.

Topic: Music of the Future: Fears That Have Already Come True and New Hopes
At various times, listeners and composers have feared synthetic music in its various forms—from the mechanical piano to Artificial Intelligence. In this lecture, we’ll discuss which of these fears have come true, whether a musical “Brave New World” has arrived, what the unexpected success of Angine de Poitrine has to do with it, how TikTok is changing the form of songs, and we’ll also develop a hypothesis about what music might become in the near future. 

Topic: The Evolution of Pop Music: From Urban Romance to K-pop
Pop music, unlike its sister genre—rock music—has been divided into styles and subgenres. It turns out that the songs sung by Frank Sinatra, the band “Ruki Vverh,” and the Korean group BTS all belong to the same genre. Let’s explore the evolution of popular music, what constituted popular music before the 20th century, who invented the K-pop formula, how hits differ from filler tracks, and try to make sense of the evolution of global pop music. 

Topic: Disco: The Rise and Fall of the 20th Century’s Most Influential Genre 
Disco is the genre that gave rise to almost all dance and electronic music. At the height of its popularity, disco was played everywhere. But its fate was altered by an unprecedented event: disco became the only musical genre against which a protest was launched. In this lecture, we’ll explore how disco came to be and how it came to an end. 

Topic: Music from Cartoons: Art for Adults or Marketing to Children? A Debate Between Anna Vilenskaya and Natasha Panfilova
Natasha Panfilova is a marketer, a master’s program instructor in Paris, and the author of a blog with an audience of 200,000 people. She discusses marketing and behavioral responses without being a bore—through observations, research, and data, all delivered with humor and entertainment.

Cartoons have been around for over a century and have evolved alongside marketing, popular culture, and pop music. Why do some of them become part of the childhood of several generations, while others are quickly forgotten? Is it all down to the music, the story, or cynical marketing?

Using examples from *Frozen*, *Shrek*, and Soviet cartoons, we’ll explore why kids are singing “Let It Go,” how the music from *Shrek* creates a fairy-tale atmosphere for a story with adult themes, why Disney has so much upbeat energy, and why Soviet cartoons often sound so touching and melancholic.

We’ll try to answer the main question: what makes a cartoon successful—the music, the story, or the marketing? Anya will talk about the work of composers, Natasha will discuss the role of marketers, and listeners will be able to vote on whose contribution was more important.