Performers: Vagram Saradjian – cello, Tatiana Gerasimova – piano
The musical events dedicated to Dmitry Shostakovich has been a good tradition at Russian Cultural Center. We continue to introduce the works of the great Russian composer to our audience.
Duet of incredible musicians, Vagram Saradjian and Tatiana Gerasimova is well-known in Houston. They appeared at RCC on various occasions and their performances has been acclaimed by the public.
Wine will be served.
Advanced ticket purchase is recommended as seating is limited.
Alexander Scriabin (1872- 1915) was one of the most innovative and most controversial of early modern composers. Many of his works are written for the piano. The earliest pieces resemble Frederic Chopin and include music in many forms that Chopin himself employed, such as the etude, the prelude and the mazurka. The style of composer changed enormously as he progressed. The early pieces are romantic, fresh and easily accessible, while his later compositions explore harmony’s further reaches.
An avid chamber musician, Teng-Kai Yang currently works on his doctorate in piano performance at University of Houston. His mentor is the most respectful pianist professor Abby Simon.
Wine will be served.
Advanced ticket purchase is recommended as seating is limited.
Russian Cultural Center Our Texas presents Musical Evening dedicated to Great Russian singer Feodor Chaliapin.
Feodor Chaliapin is perhaps the most legendary operatic bass in history. Possessed of a large and beautiful voice, he devoted himself to all aspects of his art — most significantly his dramatic portrayals.
Program: fragments of unique documentaries with live Chaliapin, excerpts of audio records 1900-1927 years, exhibit of singer’s portraits, display of books and photo albums about Chaliapin, presentation by Mark Zaltsberg.
Mark Zaltsberg is the passionate lover of opera music and collects the materials about Feodor Chaliapin all his life. He is the owner of the full collection of Chaliapin’s records. For many years Mark was a translator for visiting Russian singers at Houston Grand Opera.
Advanced ticket purchase is recommended as seating is limited.
Director: Damian Wojciechowski. Co-producer: Caroline Walker. 2004, Russia
The documentary film Forgive Me, Sergey is a story of love, betrayal and forgiveness between two people who never met. It is an example of how the ideological war between the Soviet Union and the United States dramatically affected the fates of those living in the Twentieth Century. A 20-year-old Soviet sailor Sergey Kourdakov, on the third of September 1971, jumped from his ship in the Pacific Ocean and barely made it alive to the Canadian shore.
Before his death in 1973, he wrote his autobiography, which sold millions worldwide. This book inspired young American woman, Caroline Walker, to make a journey to Russia looking for truth about Sergey’s life.
Caroline Walker will be present to answer questions.
Time of screening: 53 min
Language: Russian with English subtitles
Advance tickets purchase is recommended as seating is limited
Admission: $20 (RCC members $16) Please, purchase tickets in advance as sitting is limited.
Sergei Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered to be one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom that included a pronounced lyricism, expressive breadth, structural ingenuity, and a tonal palette of rich, distinctive orchestral colors.
Russian Cultural Center “Our Texas” presents A Russian Composer Birthday Celebration: PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY with honored guest and member of the RCC Board of Directors.
Piotr Tchaikovsky (May 7, 1840 – November 6, 1893) wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the Classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.
As his style developed, Tchaikovsky wrote music across a range of genres, including symphony, opera, ballet, instrumental, chamber and song. He became the first Russian composer to personally acquaint foreign audiences with his own works, as well as those of other Russian composers. Although Tchaikovsky’s music has always been popular with audiences, it was at times been judged harshly by musicians and composers.
James Dick is a brilliant artist, founder and creative director of the Festival-Institute in Round Top. His concert tours take him throughout the United States and abroad each year. Recognized as one of the truly important pianists of his generation, pianist James Dick brings keyboard sonorities of captivating opulence and brilliance to performances that radiate intellectual insight and emotional authenticity.
The RCC will present a documentary film about the composer, followed by a musical recital of selections from Tchaikovsky’s “Seasons”, performed by James Dick.
Wine will be served.
Please call or e-mail to RSVP, as seating is limited: 713-395-3301 or russianculturalcenter@gmail.com
On March 2, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. Russian Cultural Center “Our Texas” will present the first event of our new Russian Composer Birthday celebration series “Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky” with honored guest and member of RCC Board of Directors Maestro Hans Graf
Modest Mussorgsky (March 21, 1839 – March 28, 1881) was one of the most important Russian composers of the nineteenth century, an innovator of Russian music. He strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music.
Many of his major works were inspired by Russian history, Russian folklore, and other nationalist themes, including the pieces he is most famous for: the opera Boris Godunov, and the piano suite Pictures from an Exhibition. For many years Mussorgsky’s works were mainly known in versions revised or completed by other composers. Many of his most important compositions have recently come into their own in their original forms, and some of the original scores are now also available.
Mussorgsky’s biography is somewhat unusual for a famous classical composer. He served as a civil servant, wrote music only part-time, and died early from alcoholism, leaving behind a fairly small body of work. Yet Modest Mussorgsky is, indisputably, a major figure in the history of Russian music.
RCC will present a documentary film about the composer, followed by a musical recital of excerpts from Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition, performed by Li Zhang.
Light refreshments will be served.
Please call or e-mail to RSVP, as seating is limited: 713-395-3301 or russianculturalcenter@gmail.com
Director: Damian Wojciechowski. Co-producer: Caroline Walker. 2004, Russia
