Mikhail Gorbachev, Mstislav Rostropovich and Maxim Vengerov win Grammys

Mikhail Gorbachev, Bill Clinton and Sophia Loren have received a Recording Academy award - "Grammy-2004".

All of them were nominated in the "Spoken Word Album for Children" category for their work on the "Peter and the Wolf" CD.

The famous Italian actress as well as the Soviet and US ex-presidents released this disc in August 2003. The CD contains the well-known symphonic masterpiece "Peter and the Wolf" by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev /1891-1953/ and its sequel - the "Wolf Tracks" by contemporary French composer Jean-Pascal Beintus.

Sophia Loren tells the story of Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf", Bill Clinton introduces Jean-Pascal Beintus' "Wolf Tracks" and Mikhail Gorbachev narrates the epilogues and prologues for both stories. The producers of this project promise to release a Russian version of the disc as well.

According to Valentina Dobakhova press secretary of the Russian National Orchestra, one of the project's organizers, the "Wolf Tracks" can be described as an "ecological story". "In Prokofiev's story, Peter heads into the forest and hunts down the wolf, while the wolf becomes the main character of the 'Wolf Tracks' - he wanders the forest, ruined by our civilization," Ms. Dobakhova explains.

Outstanding Russian musicians Mstislav Rostropovich and Maxim Vengerov won awards at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Mr. Vengerov won the Solo Instrument with Orchestra award for his performance with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich on the album, "Britten: Violin Concerto/Walton: Viola Conerto." Paavo Jarvi, who conducted an Estonian chorus and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra on the album "Sibelius: Cantatas," won the award for Choral Album.