Russian Folk Orchestra to perform Dec. 4

The UW–Madison Russian Folk Orchestra will present its first solo concert Saturday, Dec. 4, at 7 p.m. in Music Hall on campus.

The 16-piece orchestra will present a program of Russian and other Slavic folk music, conducted by Victor Gorodinsky, who calls Russian folk music “distinctive, joyful and contagious.” Admission is free and open to the public.

The Russian Folk Orchestra was founded in 1998 by Gorodinsky, a Slavic languages cataloger in the university’s General Library System. The group is sponsored by the Center for Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia at UW–Madison.

Gorodinsky, a Russian immigrant, conducted the Russian Folk Orchestra of the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana before joining the UW–Madison staff in 1995. He’s had the formidable task of teaching orchestra members – most of them UW–Madison students – how to play traditional Russian stringed instruments such as the domra and balalaika. The ensemble also includes accordions and flute.

Joining the orchestra for the Dec. 4 concert will be eight guest musicians from Illinois, Georgia and Washington, D.C. All of them are members of the Balalaika and Domra Association of America. Vocal soloists will be UW–Madison student Maia Nystrum and Professor Lennart Backstrom.

“We are excited that so many skilled musicians are coming from distant points to join us,” says Gorodinsky. “We also are excited about presenting our first solo concert after more than a year of hard work to become a full-fledged orchestra with a significant repertoire.”

For more information on the Russian Folk Orchestra, visit: http://members.tripod.com/~ferrat_2/RFO/RFO.html