Vladimir Ashkenazy conducted a sort of musical tribute to glasnost, directing a concert at the Moscow Conservatory in his first performance in the Soviet Union since leaving his homeland 26 years ago.
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Shouts of "Bravo!" rang through the hall as he led Britain's Royal Philharmonic orchestra in works by Russian composers Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky. He beamed and joined briefly in the crowd's rhythmic clapping. Ashkenazy, a student at the conservatory when he shared the top prize in the 1962 Tchaikovsky piano competition, left for the West in 1963.Sunday's performance was one of two concerts to raise money to restore cultural monuments destroyed in the December earthquake in the southern Soviet republic of Armenia.