Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan, accompanied by a choir led by conductor Komoliddin Urinbayev, held a flash mob at Tashkent International Airport. The event became part of a large-scale opera festival, which these days takes place in different locations of the capital.

On 23 May, an excerpt from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony suddenly sounded in the arrivals hall of Tashkent International Airport. Passengers turned around, and from the crowd people kept appearing and appearing with musical instruments in their hands. When a whole orchestra gathered in the hall, operatic voices sounded from the crowd.

“The whole idea of the flash mob was that the musicians and vocalists were dressed in casual clothes, came out from different parts of the hall, and it was simply impossible to distinguish them from passengers and airport employees. It was very unusual. Passengers waiting for their luggage obviously did not expect to see an orchestra and real opera artists in the hall. Therefore, we decided that one such performance was not enough and four hours later we held a second flash mob,” the press service of the Uzbekistan Airports management company noted.

In total, 80 musicians and 35 vocalists took part in the action. The orchestra performed excerpts from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the medley "She yurtim ohanglari", the Andijan polka and Botir Zakirov’s composition "Umid". In total, the cultural flash mob involved about 800 passengers who arrived from Moscow, Dubai, Tel Aviv, Jeddah and Frankfurt.

It should be noted that the organizer of the opera festival, which runs from 8 to 29 May, was the khokimiyat of the capital together with the symphony orchestra of Uzbekistan. The purpose of the festival is to popularize the art of opera and attract as many spectators as possible to classical music concerts.