Da Camera Presents RUSSIAN RENAISSANCE, 10/23

Da Camera of Houston's 2018-19 season continues with the Houston debut of Russian Renaissance at Stude Concert Hall, Rice University's Shepherd School of Music, on Tuesday, October 23, 2018, at 7:30 p.m. The concert is the first of three "Folk Renaissance" concerts presented by Da Camera this season, in which classical musicians explore works in the folk music tradition.

An electrifying ensemble, Russian Renaissance is redefining chamber music through stunning, genre-defying performances that range from tango to folk to jazz. The young artists are testing the limits of their traditional Russian folk instruments: the button accordion; the balalaika and balalaika contrabasso, stringed instruments with characteristic triangular bodies and three strings; and the domra/domra alto, long-necked, round-bodied stringed instruments in the lute family. Russian Renaissance was named Musical America's New Artist of the Month in March 2018 and won the $100,000 grand prize at the 2017 M-Prize Competition, the largest prize for chamber music in the world.

In Houston, Russian Renaissance's wide-ranging program will include tangos by Richard Galliano and Astor Piazzola; works by Soviet composers Alfred Schnittke and Sergei Prokofiev along with Russian composers Eduard Artemyev and Pyotr Tchaikovsky; compositions by Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, Belgian-born Romani-French jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and Brazilian composers Egberto Gismonti and Zequinha de Abreu; "Csárdás," a work by Italian composer Vittorio Monti based on a traditional Hungarian folk dance; and "Vanya," a crossover composition arranged by Russian Renaissance.

Russian Renaissance is Ivan Kuznetsova, balalaika; Anastasia Zakharova, domra/domra alto; Alexander Tarasov, button accordion; and Ivan Viongradov, balalaika contrabasso. Da Camera's chamber music series continues with the Danish String Quartet on Tuesday, November 13, 2018, and "Vienna 1900: In the Garden of Dreams" on Friday, February 1, 2019, and Saturday, February 2, 2019.

Tickets for Russian Renaissance start at $37.50 and go on sale August 27, 2018. Tickets are available by contacting Da Camera, 1402 Sul Ross, at 713-524-5050 or online at www.dacamera.com. Tickets for students and senior citizens are always half-price. $5 student rush tickets are available 30 minutes before the concert begins.

About Da Camera Da Camera's mission is to produce and present concert experiences with a commitment to quality and innovation that broadens the audience for chamber music and jazz. From its founding, Da Camera's varied programming has consisted of chamber music in its broadest definition including both classical music and jazz, bringing highly acclaimed local, national and International Artists together in inspiring productions. Da Camera's programs were among the first in the nation to connect music to literature, theater and visual art, and to use video in multimedia concert productions. Among the first to incorporate jazz into a classical chamber music series, Da Camera is now recognized as the leading jazz presenter in the region.

Committed to the creation of new work, Da Camera has commissioned and premiered more than 30 new works in 30 years, many of which continue to be performed around the world by leading musicians. Da Camera has received numerous national awards for its creative programming concepts, and its original productions have been hailed in national press as "trendsetting" (Time Out New York), showing "unusual care and intelligence" (The New York Times) and an "ingenious thematic idea...brilliantly used" (The Washington Post). The Houston Chronicle describes Da Camera as "a Houston gem."