FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 29, 2006

Contact: DoubleSharp@DoubleSharp.org

(425) 802-3503

Music/Arts Listings: February 5, 2006

Kill Date: February 24, 2006

ACCLAIMED RUSSIAN 7-STRING GUITAR PLAYER OLEG TIMOFEYEV

MAKES HIS SEATTLE DEBUT FEBRUARY 19-23, 2006

 

In Search of Georgian Guitar Music Russian seven-string guitar and Spanish guitar

Part of the Seattle Chamber Players’ Icebreaker III festival

 

Nordstrom Recital Hall, Benaroya Hall

 

Sunday,

February 19

at 6:00 pm

$20 / $18 / $12

Russian Guitar and Romantic Flute

with Jeffrey Cohan, flute

MusaDesign Gallery,

2617 Fifth Ave, Seattle

Wednesday, February 22

at 7:30 pm

$28 / $15 / children free

FEATURED PERFORMANCE:

The Guitar in the Gulag:

Music of Matvei Pavlov-Azancheev

Part of Washington Composers Forum’s Transport Series

 

Consolidated Works gallery,

500 Boren Avenue North, Seattlle

 

Thursday, February 23

at 7:30 pm

 

$15 / $10

Seattle, WA— DoubleSharp presents distinguished Russian seven-string guitar player Oleg Timofeyev in his debut performances in Seattle. His featured performance titled “The Guitar in the Gulag: Music of Matvei Pavlov-Azancheev” will take place on Thursday, February 23, 2006, at 7:30pm, at Consolidated Works (500 Boren Avenue North, Seattle). Oleg Timofeyev performs on the Russian seven-string guitar, an instrument condemned by the Bolsheviks after 1917. The guitar’s greatest champion, Matvei Pavlov-Azancheev (1888-1963), became a victim of Stalinist repression: he was slandered, falsely accused, arrested on charges of Chapter 58.10, part two (“Anti-Soviet Propaganda”) and spent the years 1941–1951 in a Gulag labor camp. Even in the grim context of the gulag he did not abandon his composing but smuggled his provocative music out of the Gulag in letters to friends. The February 23rd performance accompanied by Timofeyev’s verbal introductions into the history of Russian seven-string guitar and Pavlov-Azancheev’s life and art. The after-event includes music by Russian bards Leonid Pozen and Sergei Zrazhevski and Russian refreshments.

Oleg Timofeyev will also perform a program of new Georgian works for the Russian seven-string guitar and the Spanish guitar, “In Search of Georgian Guitar Music,” as part of the Seattle Chamber Players’ Icebreaker III: The Caucasus festival on Sunday, February 19, 2006, at 6:00 pm, at the Nordstrom Recital Hall, Benaroya Hall. Since 2001, Timofeyev has worked with the Moscow-based composer Gherman Dzhaparidze, originally from Tbilisi, Georgia, who helped Timofeyev interpret Georgian music for guitar. Since that time, Timofeyev has included in his recitals Georgian music for the Russian seven-string guitar (by Narimanidze) and for the six-string instrument (by Dzhaparidze, Kalandadze, and Shavlokhashvili). Some of this music will be heard at the concert.

Additional concert, titled “Russian Guitar and Romantic Flute,” will take place on Wednesday, February 22, 2006, at 7:30 pm, at MusaDesign Gallery (2617 Fifth Avenue, Seattle) in collaboration with Concert Spirituel  and flutist Jeffrey Cohan (playing an eight-keyed flute). Timofeyev and Cohan will perform Russian, American and European works from 1790 through 1840, many of which have been unearthed by Timofeyev and Cohan in Russia and at the Library of Congress.  In Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, Natasha's uncle plays the seven-string guitar, and he critiques a performance by his coachman of Barynia, a Russian folksong which will be presented in an anonymous setting for guitar. Timofeyev will also perform other guitar solos including Caprice Militaire by I. Gornostaev and variations on God Save the Tsar by Andrei Osipovich Sychra (1775-1850), one of the first great players of the seven-string guitar. Also included will be Louis Drouet's God Save the King variations, I.T. Norton's Yankee Doodle variations published in Philadelphia in 1829, and Millet's Air Russe from 1796. Refreshments will be offered.

Oleg Timofeyev, the world’s premiere expert on the Russian seven-string guitar, holds an M.A. in Early Music Performance from the University of Southern California (1993) and a Ph.D. in Performance Practice from Duke University (1999). Timofeyev's recording debut took place in 1999 with a solo lute album (The Wandering Lutenist, Centaur 2409) and the pioneering The Golden Age of the Russian Guitar (DOR 93170). As a reviewer for Guitar Player wrote: “The Golden Age of the Russian Guitar succeeds on many levels – emotional, technical, historical – and is essential listening for anyone who is passionate about guitar.” Since 2000, Timofeyev has recorded The Golden Age of the Russian Guitar, Vol. 2 (DOR 93203) and Acrobatic Dance: Music from the Gulag by Matvei Pavlov-Azancheev (Hänssler 98.458), both received extremely warmly by critics worldwide. As a recipient of a Fulbright award for 2001-2002, he taught seminars in historical performance practice at the Maimonides Classical State Academy in Moscow.

Flutist Jeffrey Cohan has performed as soloist in 24 countries, having received international acclaim both as a modern flutist and as one of the foremost specialists on transverse flutes from the Renaissance through the mid-19th century.  He won the Erwin Bodky Award in Boston, and the highest prize awarded in the Flanders Festival International Concours Musica Antiqua in Brugge, Belgium, with lutenist Stephen Stubbs.  First Prize winner of the Olga Koussevitzky Young Artist Awards Competition, he has performed throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, and worldwide for the USIA Arts America Program.  He received the highest rating from the Music Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts.  Many works have been written for and premiered by him, including four new flute concerti since 2000. 

DoubleSharp is a non-profit organization established to present artistic and educational events with excellence, creativity, and diversity in order to actively promote the appreciation of contemporary and world music and to challenge, educate, and enrich our audiences. DoubleSharp is dedicated to researching contemporary and world music and to enriching American and world audiences with musics of other cultures.  For more information, call (425) 802-3503 or visit www.DoubleSharp.org.  

Washington Composers Forum (WCF) is a non-profit arts organization that nurtures the creation, performance, and dissemination of new music. For more information visit www.washingtoncomposers.org. 

Seattle Chamber Players has been passionately dedicated to introducing rarely performed and previously unheard contemporary chamber music of the highest quality to the Pacific Northwest and audiences worldwide. The ensemble's work has been recognized with the ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming.  For more information, visit www.SeattleChamberPlayers.org.

MusaDesign is an interior architecture studio that provides original concept design, strategic space planning, and cutting-edge style using modern materials and technology to residential and commercial clients world wide. The gallery is located at 2617  5th Ave, Seattle, south of Seattle Center beneath the Monorail. For more information, call (425) 246-8464 or visit www.MusaDesign.net.

Concert Spirituel presents music from the Renaissance through the present, performed on period instruments.  An influential concert series in Paris from 1725 until 1790, the Concert Spirituel offered outstanding and innovative sacred and chamber music performances presented by the leading instrumentalists and composers of Europe.

Sunday,  February 19, 2006, at 6:00pm

Nordstrom Recital Hall, Benaroya Hall

Part of the Seattle Chamber Players’ Icebreaker III festival

In Search of Georgian Guitar Music

Oleg Timofeyev, Russian seven-string guitar and Spanish guitar

Niko Narimanidze                   Georgian Song                                   

                                                Khorumi

Folk Songs /                             Chela

arr. Kalandadze                                   Iavnana

Georgian Sacred Tune /                       Shen khar venakhi      

arr. Dzhaparidze

Folk Song /                              Song of Imeretian Horsemen                                      

arr. Dzhaparidze

Gherman Dzhaparidze             Shavlego                                             

Tenghiz Shavlokhashvili          Ballad             

Wednesday, February 22, 2006, at 7:30 pm

MusaDesign Gallery

Russian Guitar and Romantic Flute

+ Oleg Timofeyev, Russian seven-string guitar and Spanish guitar

*Jeffrey Cohan, eight-keyed flute

Millet                                       Air Russe

Arr. Anonymous                      Barynia, a Russian folksong from Tolstoy’s War and Peace

Sychra                                     Variations on God Save the Tsar

Drouet                                     God Save the King variations

Gornostaev                              Caprice Militaire

Norton                                     Yankee Doodle variations

Thursday, February 23, 2006, at 7:30 pm

Consolidated Works

The Guitar in the Gulag:

Music of Matvei Pavlov-Azancheev

Oleg Timofeyev, Russian seven-string guitar

Pavlov-Azancheev                   Perpetuum mobile

Etude for the Left Hand

Elegy Old Age

The Zulu Procession

Sonata Great Patriotic War

Peaceful Soviet Life/ Beginning of the War  

The Red Square Parade

The Spanish Serenade  

Jazz Band

Etude on a Pedal Point

Programs subject to change

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Media and Ticket Information Contact: DoubleSharp@DoubleSharp.org; (425) 802-3503