In Concert This Weekend Stephen Zurakowsky writes about Grigori Korchmar’s White Nights Serenades

This weekend I have the pleasure of performing my own compositions but I would also like to share with you a new composition I found recently.

White Nights Serenades by Grigori Korchmar is a profound composition and this is what publisher Matanya Ophee had to say about this piece:

“I published this work in Vol. IV of the Russian Collection back in 1994. I always maintained that this was one of the most important works for guitar in the 20th century…. certainly on the level of the Britten Nocturnal.“

He also writes:

“White Nights Serenades is a major composition for the guitar, composed by Mr. Korchmar in 1990. The White Nights is a time around the summer solstice when the prolonged twilights of evening and morning merge into a night full of light. This is a special time in St. Petersburg when the city does not seem to go to sleep. The social impact of this time of the year was already well recognized at the time of Alexander Pushkin whose poem The Bronze Horseman is used by Korchmar to set the context of the music. The Bronze Horseman is the famous statue of Peter the Great situated between the St. Isaak cathedral and the Neva river in St. Petersburg, and widely accepted as a symbol of the city.”

I ordered the complete Russian Collection last year to study and analyse the music because I am intrigued by my Ukrainian background.

Sight reading is a pleasure for me and by the time I went through White Nights Serenades I was in tears because my experience was profound, a journey, an event… I was speechless.

Sweeping away a lack of embarrassment I emailed the publisher Matanya Ophee and gushed over this piece and that is when I found out it has rarely been performed.

Why?  Perhaps it was hidden in an anthology but now has been published as a solo piece!

http://www.editionsorphee.com/store/index.php?_a=product&product_id=157

White Night Serenades by Korchmar is a remarkable piece of music penned by a very mature hand.  It has focus, meaning and it takes you on a 20 minute mystical journey.  Modern music can have cliches too, but not in this composition.  Never once does it stray into oblivion; the dissonance is engaging and literally breathes new birth by the finale.  Every time I play this composition I am a different person by the end.  This is really difficult to explain!  How is it that a piece of music can be so profound and can literally change the vibe in the room?  I don’t know, but I have experienced this wonderful feeling over and over this year.

I am looking forward to presenting this remarkable work of music!

Stephen Zurakowksy

Artistic Director