Perhaps some of you have noticed occasional guitars in the famous masterpieces of Russian literature:  for example, Natasha Rostova dances to her uncle’s guitar playing in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” or Telegin plays a polka on his guitar in Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.” But barely anybody knows that from its very beginning in the 1790s, the Russian guitar tradition has been very different from the Western-European one.  To make the matters worse, by the end of the 20^th Century, this unique and exciting tradition was pretty much abandoned in Russia. 

Oleg Timofeyev is the person behind the world-wide revival of the Russian seven-string guitar (or semistrunka).  In 1999 he defended his Ph. D. dissertation on the subject, at Duke University.  Since then he recorded more than 30 CD albums, featuring different repertoires:  classical, contemporary, Russian-Romani (“Gypsy”), Jewish, and even Georgian.  Since 2006 he produces annual Russian Guitar Festivals, that bring players from Russia, Ukraine, Belorus, Kyrgyzstan, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Australia. 

But most of Timofeyev’s activities, including his festivals, happen far away from the City.  It is of particular interest for New Yorkers, then, to attend his intimate, engaging performance at the Tolstoy Lounge.  For every piece he will be playing on his original 1912 guitar by Mikhail Eroshkin, Timofeyev will tell a story that will put the music in its historical and cultural context.  For example, he will share with you a shockingly light-wing variations on the Russian anthem “God Save the Czar,” and will explain the roots of the disproportional popularity of Oginski’s Polonaise in Russian and Soviet culture.

RSVP