The story
Mad Days in Yekaterinburg in Yekaterinburg
Mad Days is the Russian edition of La Folle Journée, the marathon classical-music festival French producer René Martin launched in Nantes in 1995 and later brought to cities worldwide. Yekaterinburg has hosted it since 2015 as the festival's sole Russian home, staging dozens of short, affordably priced concerts across chamber, choral, wind and symphonic repertoire in venues throughout the city each season.
In 1995, a French producer named René Martin had an idea that classical music promoters mostly ignored at the time: instead of one long, formal concert with a hushed intermission, why not schedule dozens of short performances back to back, at ticket prices low enough that someone could wander in on a whim?