The Konevets Quartet from St. Petersburg, Russia will present a concert Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 7pm at Central Presbyterian Church, 318 W. Kentucky St, Louisville. (Admission is by donation.)
More about The Konevets Quartet:
The Konevets Quartet was founded in 1992 by four young musicians from the St Petersburg Conservatoire who were singing in the choir of the Konevets Monastery of the Holy Nativity on the island of Konevets in Lake Ladoga. Their first audiences were the people working on the restoration of the monastery, and the pilgrims and tourists who came to the island.
All the members of the ensemble studied at the St Petersburg Glinka Choir College. Trained in the tradition of Russian song, the Konevets Quartet is not just a group of individual soloists, but is in essence a chamber choir dedicated to creating a perfect harmonious ensemble sound.
At the heart of their repertoire is Russian church music, from ancient material written for the monasteries to works by 20th century composers. The earliest church music is sung in unison or in arrangement for two or three voices, and in contemporary four-voice arrangements, many of them written by members of the Konevets Quartet.
Apart from church music, their concert programmes often include a variety of Russian folk songs and military songs and marches from the days of the Imperial army — songs which were all but lost during Soviet times. The repertoire also draws on settings of Russian poems arranged for male voice choirs by Russian classical composers.
