Our 2008/2009 Season
Sunday – 21 September 2008 – 3:00 pm
St. Petersburg String Quartet
Alla Aranovskaya - 1st Violin
Alla Krolevich - 2nd Violin
Boris Vayner - Viola
Leonid Shukayev - Cello
with Roman Mekinoulov - Cello
The St. Petersburg Quartet is unquestionably one of the world’s great chamber ensembles. Their rise to fame has included a Grammy nomination, “Best Record” honors in both Stereo Review and Gramophone, an opening night performance at Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center, a five-year residency at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and hundreds of concerts on many of North America, Europe and Asia’s most prestigious series and festivals. They opened the 2007-08 Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center quartet series (the New York Times praised their “sumptuous account of Tchaikovsky’s Quartet No.1”), and performed with violist Michael Tree of the Guarneri Quartet at the Library of Congress. The Washington Post hailed the quartet’s “impassioned performance . . . unassailable technique and intonation . . . an astonishingly calibrated range of voicings and dynamics . . . luscious tonal blend and phrasing that surged with ardor . . . breathtaking assurance and laugh-out-loud wit.” Strings Magazine wrote: “At every turn, the quartet seems to find something illuminating. Nothing is routine, nothing taken for granted, and yet it all sounds magically spontaneous.”
The St. Petersburg String Quartet blazed a trail through chamber music circles, winning a number of prestigious international competitions including 1st Prize at the All-Soviet Union String Quartet Competition; Silver Medal and a Special Prize at the Tokyo International Chamber Music Competition, 1st Prize and both Special Prizes at the Vittorio Gui International Competition for Chamber Ensembles in Florence, Italy, and First Prize and the "Grand Prix Musica Viva" at the Melbourne, Australia, International Chamber Music Competition.
At this concert, the SPSQ will be joined by their long-time friend and collaborator, cellist Roman Mekinulov. Mekinulov is a native of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, and is the principal cellist of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. After immigrating to the United States in 1989, Mr. Mekinulov studied at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, where he completed his bachelor and master degrees. While at Juilliard, he performed as a principal cellist with the Juilliard Symphony and Orchestra under the direction of Kurt Masur, Hugh Wolf, and Leonard Slatkin. Since 1995 Mr. Mekinulov has been repeatedly invited to substitute in the New York Philharmonic in concert, as well as in recordings for Teldec. He has been principal cellist of the North Carolina University Orchestra on their European tour, with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra in Germany, and with Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. As an active recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist, Roman Mekinulov has performed extensively throughout the United States, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Germany, France, Greece, Denmark, and Switzerland, as well as his native Russia.