The Moscow Soloists Chamber Orchestra is 20 years old this year and to celebrate the occasion, Yuri Bashmet, the group’s founder, conductor and soloist, is taking his 20 musicians on the road and across the seas. “This is part of an international tour dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the orchestra,” said Maria Shclover, whose company, Maestro Artist Management, presents the performances worldwide. “They just finished touring in Russia.”
To kick off the United States leg of the tour, they will be performing a concert in the grand hall of the Music Center at Strathmore at 8 p.m. Friday night. Their stunning program repertoire features Schubert’s String Quartet in D minor (“Death and the Maiden”). Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major, Tchaikovsky’s Nocturne in D minor for Cello and Orchestra, and Brahms’ Quintet in B minor For Viola and Strings.
| Onstage |
| Moscow Soloists Chamber Orchestra |
| Where: Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda |
| When: 8 p.m. Friday |
| Info: $55 to $75; 301-581-5100; strathmore.org |
In addition to conducting the ambitious program, Bashmet, who started his orchestra with graduates of the Moscow Conservatory, performs in the Brahms Quintet. As a Chicago music critic noted, “No one in contemporary times has done more for the viola than Yuri Bashmet.”
Bashmet, dubbed by the press as “one of the world’s greatest living musicians,” has, through his virtuosity, strength of personality and intelligence, given the viola new prominence among the stringed instruments. As such, composers are expanding the viola repertoire. There are more than 25 concertos for viola that are dedicated to him alone.
The tour’s second soloist is the Latvian-born Israeli virtuoso cellist Mischa Maisky.
The distinguished Mstislav Rostropovich, under whom Maisky studied, called his pupil “one of the most outstanding talents of the younger generation of cellists.” Rostropovich went on: “His playing combines poetry and exquisite delicacy with great temperament and brilliant technique.”
Maisky will infuse all these attributes into Haydn’s cello piece as well as Tchaikovsky’s Nocturne.
“The Moscow Soloists are a brilliant group of musicians that are here as true representatives of the Russian school of playing,” Shclover said. “[Theirs] is a very good program dedicated to the classics.”
