15 February 2016, 20:00
Multimedia Art Museum. Address: Moscow, ul. Ostozhenka 16
Pianist and composer, whose early years were spent in the wonderful forests and mountains of the verdant Thuringia, Martin Kohlstedt belongs to the group of musicians who seek salvation from the modern world’s aggression in the harmonising piano pieces. Following in the footsteps of Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds, Kohlstedt composes watercolour-like piano etudes, occasionally using non-traditional techniques of sound articulation and electronic patches. His music is laconic, dramatic and supremely emotional. Kohlstedt may begin with a timid keyboard ripple and gradually hit a stride of the menacing staccato storm, only to end the piece with conciliatory melodic lull.
The artist’s live performances never fail to impress the public: during his concerts, Martin enters a state of fervent ecstasy, fusing with his instrument in ritual trance.
The artist’s live performances never fail to impress the public: during his concerts, Martin enters a state of fervent ecstasy, fusing with his instrument in ritual trance.
This will be Martin Kohlstedt’s first performance in Russia
Misha Mishenko is one of Russia’s most active, ambitious and successful young composers. When he was younger, Misha was a part of a pop punk band and composed musical scores for ads and movies. Today, he’s the author of more than ten LPs of music that is generally categorised as “Neoclassical” and a resident of the Russian label Flowers Blossom In The Space, which specialises in contemporary instrumental music.
Mishenko’s delicate melodies evoke the fairy-tale music of Iceland. The young composer has admitted his “Icelandic addiction” on numerous occasions: he got his start in writing instrumental music, impressed by the Sigur Rós band, he had used Icelandic chants in his recordings, and he had shared the stage with the well-known Ólafur Arnalds.
Mishenko had just released his two latest LPs at the end of 2015. One is the experimental Metanoia, and the other is called Piano and consists of 20 piano pieces.
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.
