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Purple Rain comes to Moscow: Prince’s hits to top Russian jazz festival in June

The 15th anniversary festival will be held at the Arkhangelskoe Estate on June 2 and 3

Visitors walk outside a lit mansion at Usadba Jazz International Festival in Arkhangelskoye Estate Valery Sharifulin/TASS

Visitors walk outside a lit mansion at Usadba Jazz International Festival in Arkhangelskoye Estate

© Valery Sharifulin/TASS

MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/. The New Power Generation, the former backing band of legendary American musician Prince, will perform their hits at the Usadba Jazz festival in Moscow on June 2, the festival’s press service told TASS.

"Purple Rain, Nothing Compares 2U and other hits by Prince will be performed at the Usadba Jazz festival," a representative of the festival’s press service said describing the coming show as "the performance the legendary musician could be proud of."

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Prince performed with the New Power Generation since 1990 and together they released many hits including Sexy MF and Cream.

"Working with the New Power Generation marked the artist’s transition to a new sound, and the first of their joint albums Diamonds & Pearls became a worldwide hit and topped the R&B-Billboard chart," the spokesperson said.

Prince Rogers Nelson (1958 - 2016) gained worldwide fame after the release of his album "1999" in 1982. In his heyday, Prince was considered second only to Michael Jackson (1958-2009) in terms of popularity in the US. The singer received many prestigious awards, including an Oscar, a Grammy and a Golden Globe.

Russia's Usadba Jazz festival

Usadba Jazz is the biggest Russian open-air festival joining jazz, funk, world music, acid-jazz, lounge, jazz-rock, blues and other styles of contemporary improvised music.

The Festival was held for the first time in May 2004, at the Arkhangelskoe Estate, a masterpiece of 18th century Russian architecture situated on the outskirts of Moscow ("Usadba" in Russian means Estate). Since then the Festival has become an annual event in Arkhangelskoe.

Since 2011, the festival has also been held in St. Petersburg and since 2013 - in Yekaterinburg. Moreover, since 2014 Usadba Jazz also has held a venue in Voronezh and since 2016 - in Sochi.

During this time, more than 1,000 musicians took part in the festival.

This year, the 15th anniversary festival will be held in Arkhangelskoe on June 2 and 3.

Among its guests are Grammy-Award winning bassist Richard Bona (US), saxophone player Donny McCaslin (US) jazz singer Peruquois (Australia) famous Russian rock band Auktsion, renowned balalaika player Alexei Arkhipovsky, one of the most famous Russian jazzmen in the world Igor Butman with his quintet.

TASS news agency is the general information partner of the festival.

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