Baylor Lyceum Series Hosts Touring Russian Musicians

March 18, 2009

by Lillyan Baker, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
The award-winning St. Petersburg Duo, Alexander Danilevsky, a young violinist and Nadja Chestnova, a pianist from the conservatories of Russia, will perform "Unknown Treasures from Two Centuries of Russian Chamber Music," on Thursday, March 19, at 7:30 p.m. in Roxy Grove Hall on the Baylor University campus.

Pavel Eliashevich served as a teacher to the St. Petersburg Duo and will perform "From Russia with Love" as a guest soloist with the Baylor Symphony Orchestra on Tuesday, March 24, at 7:30 p.m. in Jones Concert Hall at the Glennis McCrary Music Building on the Baylor campus.

The St. Petersburg Duo will perform musical pieces by Maxim Berezovsky, Mikhail Glinka, Nikolai Medtner, Gennady Banshikov, Edisson Denissov and Igor Stravinsky.

Eliashevich will perform Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Op. 35, which is based off of the 1888 book The Book of One Thousand and One Night. He will also feature Sergei Rachmaninoff's four revised piano concertos from 1941. Dr. Stephen Heyde, director of orchestral activities and the Waco Symphony Orchestra, will conduct.

Founded in 2005, the St. Petersburg Duo won second prize at the 2nd International Mirror of St. Petersburg Competition in 2006. In May 2007, they received the highest prize, Summa Cum Laude, at the 55th European Music Festival in Neerpelt, Belgium.

Danilevsky graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov College of Music and St. Petersburg Conservatoire.

Chestnova graduated from the Rachmaninoff College of Music in Kaliningrad, Russia. She received her master's degree from the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia and now is finishing her PhD courses in piano and chamber ensemble with Eliashevich. Chestnova is head of the Piano Department at the Kirovsky Art School in St. Petersburg.

Eliashevich is the Professor of Piano and Chamber Ensemble of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia in St. Petersburg.

The events, which are free and open to the public, are part of the Baylor School of Music's Lyceum Series. The Lyceum Series was founded in 1976 and has been funded by the Meadows Foundation of Dallas since 1980.

For more information about the Lyceum Concert Series, call the Baylor School of Music at (254) 710-3991.