Viola player Sergei Poltavsky is a living refutation of the buttoned-up intellectual musician cliche. On the one hand is the full list of conquered summits of the “big music” world: a solo career, a prize of Yuri Bashmet’s prestigious viola competition, collaboration with Moscow Soloists ensemble, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, and a dozen of the best Russian conductors and performers. On the other hand is his interest in state-of-the-art technologies, electroacoustics and sound experiments, and an array of striking concert endeavours, which included the “quartet for four speaking viola players,” a piece for viola, Macbook and a beam of light, and a composition for a toy piano. Any musical undertaking by Poltavsky is interesting by definition, be it baroque music performed on viola d’amore, or “Viola is my life” festival, whose ambitious performances alternate with intellectual tomfoolery.

A keen connoisseur of academic music and a tireless promoter of contemporary classical, Sergei Poltavsky will perform three compositions for viola that will establish the correlation between 20th century avant-garde, contemporary academism that experiments with electronica, and easy-to-understand post-minimalism.