CRM 2011-12 , Term 1 –

Centre for Russian Music Presents:


Friday, 7  October 2011, Great Hall, 7:30 pm

Goldsmiths Sinfonia and Chorus
Alexander Ivashkin, conductor
Tim Hooper, chorus master
Tim Phillips ( clarinet).

Rossini: William Tell Overture 
Shostakovich: Symphony No 6
Edison Denisov: Clarinet Concerto for Clarinet and orchestra;  Tim Phillips (clarinet).  UK premiere
Gretchaninov  - Otche Nash 
Rakhmaninov - V molitvakh Neusypayushchuyu 
Mussorgsky - Angel Vopiyashe 
Glazunov ( arr.)   - Stikhira Paskhi 
Prokofiev: Prosper, Our Mighty Land . Cantata  for the 30th anniversary of the October Revolution., op. 114 . UK Premiere.


Thursday 20 October 2011, Council Chamber, Deptford Town Hall, 7 pm:
Celebrating arrival of new Steinway-D at Goldsmiths

Alissa Firsova presents and performs Russian and Post-Soviet piano music.

[Centre for Russian Music houses  a unique  Malcolm Henbury Ballan collection of the first editions of Russian piano works]

Born into a family of composers, Alissa Firsova is a British-Russian pianist, composer and conductor. She completed her piano and composition studies at the Purcell School followed by the Royal Academy of Music where she is currently on the Postgraduate Conducting course under Colin Metters. She has appeared as a soloist in major halls and festivals throughout the UK and worldwide and recently gave both her Wigmore Hall and Proms debuts. As a keen chamber musician, Alissa has enjoyed working with distinguished artists such as Stephen Kovacevich, Stephen Isserlis and the Dante Quartet. After winning the BBC/Guardian/Proms Young Composer Competition at the age of 14, Alissa received numerous commissions, recently culminating in a commission for the 2010 Proms festival to do a transcription for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s Bach Day, which was conducted by Andrew Litton and broadcast live on BBC 2. Her music was also performed and toured by Imogen Cooper, Henning Kraggerud, Dante Quartet, Netherlands Blazer Ensemble, Seattle Chamber Players and the Philharmonia Soloists. Alissa gave her conducting debut in November 2010 at the Duke’s Hall, RAM, conducting her self-founded Meladina Ensemble in works by her mother Elena Firsova for her 60th Birthday concert, with soloists Zoya Vyazovskaya and Karine Georgian. In February 2011 Alissa’s clarinet concerto “Freedom” received its world premiere in Seattle by Laurie de Luca, Christophe Chagnard and the Northwest Sinfonietta. Alissa's studies at the RAM are generously supported by the L'Association de Les Amis de Canisy and the Zvi and Ofra Meitar Family Fund.

Anatoly Liadov                         Variations on a Polish Folk Theme op.51 
Peter Il’yich Tschaikovsky        Dumka op.59 
Elena Firsova                             ‘Hymn to Spring’ op.64 
Alexander Scriabin 		   Poems Op. 32, No. 1 & 2 
Dmitri Shostakovich                  Sonata op.12 

Dmitri Smirnov                          ‘Blake-Sonata’ op.157
Sergei Rachmaninov                 Sonata No. 2 (original version) op.36


Monday, 24 October 2011, 6 pm. David Josefowitz Recital Hall, the Royal Academy of Music. 

Sergei Vasilenko .  Complete Works for viola and piano. With Elena Artamonova, viola 
(Goldsmiths) and Nicholas Walker ( RAM).

The launch of new  CD  released by the Toccata Classics; presentation and performance

Sergei Vasilenko (1872–1956) was influenced by the nineteenth-century nationalist school, by his teacher Taneyev and by Scriabin, adding an interest in Symbolism and hints of early modernism. All his known compositions for viola, published and unpublished, are to be heard for the first time on this CD, the fruit of recent research investigations in libraries and archives in Moscow and London led by Elena Artamonova, Centre for Russian Music, Goldsmith College. The discovery of the seven works on this CD – most of them unknown before now - not only expands the repertoire of the instrument; it also points to the courage of a Russian-Soviet composer who spent his life treading the tight-rope between his own musical interests and the demands of ‘socialist realism’.

Thursday, 24 November 2012,  6 pm, Council Chamber, Deptford Town Hall 
Irina Tutt, soprano, Irina Nikitina,  piano

The Hidden Treasures of the Twentieth-century Russian  Song

Irina Tutt and Nina Nikitina present a unique selection of songs which explore the development of Russian song in 20th century.

Program includes three  songs by 

Sergei Rakhmaninov
Sergei Vasilenko
Vladimir Shcherbachev
Yury Shaporin
Georgy Sviridov
Sergei Slonimsky


Thursday, December 1,  Council Chamber ,  Deptford Town Hall , 6pm

Alex McIntyre on ‘Russian Schonberg’ – Nikolai Roslavets,  on  Boleslav Yavorsky’s system  of ‘modal rhythm’ and on  Sergei Protopopov’s music, as well on his recent trip to Moscow/ discoveries at Russian archives


Tuesday, 6 December  2011,  Cinema, 5 pm. Jointly with the  Graduate Forum

Shostakovich and Weinberg: a Dialogue. 

Michelle Assay (Université de Paris Sorbonne) and David Fanning (University of Manchester) 



Admission is free  (except 7 October evening concert)