KlezCalendar

With their recital entitled Orientale, violinist Grigory Sedukh and pianist
Sara Cormbach are paying homage to a group of Russian-Jewish composers whose
music was banned in the Soviet Union. Some of them belonged to the
Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music, which was founded in 1908. The
Society was a meeting place for Jewish composers interested in creating a
new kind of classical Jewish music. They collected folk music, gave concerts
and published informative material on Jewish folk music. The forerunners
included music critic, composer and publisher Joel Engel (1862-1927) and
composers Ephraim Skliar (1871-?) and Solomon Rosovsky (1878-1962). The
leading composers included Joseph Achron (1886-1943), Mikhail Gnesin
(1883-1957) and Alexander Krein (1883-1951). The Petersburg Society created
a considerable oeuvre consisting of original works as well as new
arrangements of the traditional repertoire. The Society was officially was
active for 10 years and had to stop in 1918 after the Communist take-over.
Jewish culture was taboo in the Soviet Union after 1930 and the music of the
Society was no longer performed. The memory of it was virtually erased, but
today some dedicated musicians are trying to revive it. Grigory Sedukh is
one of them. The programme also features well-known Jewish works by Bruch
and Bloch.

As an added attraction, a piece by René Samson, a Jewish composer from
Surinam, is included, Eine kleine Gamelan-Musik. Although originally written
for flute and piano, it will be performed in a special version for piccolo
violin and piano. Samson, born in 1948 in Paramaribo, is a chemist who
started composing at the age of 40. Since 1998 a small enthusiast group of
musicians has regularly performed Samson's music.

Grigory Sedukh, born in 1952 in Kharkov in the Ukraine, is the only piccolo
violinist in the world. He was introduced ten years ago to this instrument
constructed by the renowned American violin-maker Carleen Hutchins. It is
tuned an octave higher than the regular violin and Sedukh is particularly
fond of playing Jewish music on the piccolo violin. He also made many
transcriptions for it of classical masterpieces. Grigory Sedukh is a member
of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and teaches at the chamber
music department of the Petersburg State Conservatory. He gives solo
recitals all over the world.

In September 2000 he was in the opera Alice in Wonderland, performed by the
Nederlandse Opera at the Music Theatre in Amsterdam. Composer Alexander
Kneiffel wrote a special role for Grigory's piccolo violin. During the
production he met the pianist Sara Crombach. In 2002/2003 Grigory
participated in the Mikhail Gnesin Project, organised by the Jewish Music
Projects Foundation and performed in Amsterdam, Geneva, London, St.
Petersburg, Moscow and other cities.

Sara Crombach studied with Naum Grubert at the Royal Conservatory in The
Hague. She followed master classes in Hungary with the Kodály Quartet and at
the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow with Boris Berman and Sergei
Dorenski. She also studied with Maria João Pires. She performs often as a
soloist and in duos with pianist Bernd Brackman and cellist Wladislaw
Warenberg, with whom she recorded a CD of Russian romantic masterpieces. She
also recorded with the Armenian Chamber Orchestra Yerevan.

More information:
. Liberal Jewish Community Amsterdam, phone: 020-5400123
Jacob Soetendorpstraat 8, 1079 RM Amsterdam
. Jewish Music Projects Foundation, phone: 020-662 3675
P.O. Box 55524, 1007 NA Amsterdam
See www.lgj.nl; http://www.joodsemuziekprojecten.nl