“Rus. A Painting Brought to Life”: Butman and the orchestra bring Vasnetsov’s art to a groundbreaking music video

In early August 2026, the filming of the first music video by Igor Butman and the Moscow Jazz Orchestra “Rus” was completed. The painting is alive. In the center of the project is the instrumental composition "Rus" arranged by Nikolai Levinovsky from the album "Images". Mussorgsky and Borodin. Filming took place in the Mikhailovsky Palace of the Russian Museum under the direction of Igor Butman and the soloists of the orchestra, where "Rus" found a new life through the use of artificial intelligence technologies to revive monumental paintings by Viktor Vasnetsov.

Butman said that this music is a source of inspiration for new projects, including the musical and literary performance “The Word about Igor’s Regiment”. He emphasized the epic breadth and lyricism of the composition “Rus” as the ideal basis for creating a jazz suite, which, combined with AI animation, will clearly convey the relationship between Russian painting and modern music.

The project was implemented by the Igor Butman Foundation with the support of the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives within the framework of the national project “Youth and Children”. The premiere of the video dedicated to the Year of Unity of the Peoples of Russia will be held on October 1 on the Day of Russian Jazz.