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Abstract: The second issue of our journal is devoted to various aspect of the contemporary foreign music. The authors were mostly interested in the problems of aesthetics and styles, as well as study of specificity of the contemporary means of expressiveness. Thus, the Doctor of Philosophy E. I. Shapinskaya in her article presents an extensive culturological analysis of the work of the medieval German painter Bernt Notke “Danse Macabre” (Dance of Death) alongside the cantata of the contemporary British composer Thomas Adès within the contexts of Medieval Times and Postmodernism, based on the descriptive method; an attempt is made to perform a hermeneutic analysis of both cultural texts. However, this issue focuses attention on the analysis of the works of the three renowned Brazilian composers – Heitor Villa-Lobos, José Antônio de Almeida Prado, and Marlos Nobre. Such peculiar attention to Brazilian music is explained by the fact that at the end of February of 2016 the State Institute for Art Studies held an the international conference titled “Brazilian Academic Music”. This event is remarkable because the music of Brazilian composers for the first time became the topic of the scientific discourse in Moscow: for majority of the Russian music lovers this area of contemporary art is yet quite exotic. The conference was held at high level; Brazilian guests and music culture experts, as well as audience from different scientific institutes were welcomed by the Brazilian Ambassador to Russia Antonio Jose Vallim Guerreiro, Director of the Institute for Art Studies Natalia Vladimirovna Sipovskaya, Deputy Director on scientific work Elena Ivanovna Strutinskaya, and First Secretary of the Embassy, attaché on culture Igor Zhermano. The initiator of this conference was the Department of Theory of Music, while the performance of Brazilian guests along with the concert program were organized with the support of the Brazilian Embassy in Moscow. Choosing the topics for the discourse, organizers were trying to illustrate a wide panorama of Brazilian music, especially considering that there are very few experts in this area of contemporary music. The materials from several reports prepared specifically for this conference, are presented in the main content of the issue of our journal. The conference was opened by the report of Doctor of Art Studies and Senior Researcher at the State Institute for Art Studies Valeria Nikolayevna Fedotova “Villa-Lobos and the European Music”. At a certain point, the works by Villa-Lobos became the subject of dissertation of the musicologist; in her publications she also described the music of other Latin American countries. In her report, V. N. Fedotova re-learned multiple materials from the French archives and underlined that the artistic synthesis in the works of Villa-Lobos was performed on the highest artistic level; thus, his oeuvres were able to attract attention of the wide European audience and renowned creative communities in the 1920’s. Special interest sparked the report on the works by composer Marlos Nobre and “magical realism” by Vitaliy Romanovich Dotsenko (Post-Doctoral Degree in Art Studies, Leading Researcher at the Center of Culturological Research attached to the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, author of the monograph “History of Latin American Music of the XVI–XX centuries”, 2010). Marlos Nobre (born in 1939) is one of the brightest representatives of Brazilian Composer’s School; his music was the conduit for individualized reflection of the main music directions of the XX century – neofolklorism, neoclassicism, and various trends of avant-garde. The report of Natalia Sergeevna Renyova (Doctor of Art Studies, Docent at the department of Theory and History of Music, the Maimonid State Classical Academy) was dedicated to the analysis of the Third Sonata for Violin and Piano by José de Almeida Prado (1991). This composer’s music also aroused interest of another researcher Olga Valerievna Sobakina (Post-Doctoral Degree in Art Studies, Leading Researcher at the State Institute for Art Studies). We hope that becoming familiar with the presented in this issue scientific material will be a continuation of the dialogue between the Russian and Brazilian musicians, contribute into the scientific and cultural collaboration, as well as spark interest of the performers and listeners to the expressive and remarkable music of the contemporary Brazilian composers.   

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