Starting in September, lovers of opera, art song and Russian culture are cordially invited to join esteemed pianist and vocal coach Vera Danchenko-Stern, founder and artistic director of the Russian Chamber Art Society, for Russian Tea Time With Vera, a Sunday-afternoon series of streamed performances featuring live commentary by the performers and other special guests.
Sharing the Russian Chamber Art Society’s most memorable performances — recorded using professional-quality audio and video — this new monthly series, presented online via Zoom, will also offer viewers unique musical insights and a much-needed feeling of hospitality and companionship, Russian style.
Dating back centuries, Russian tea culture is deeply entwined with the society’s notions of friendship, romance, business and politics. At each session of Russian Tea Time With Vera, host Vera Danchenko-Stern will touch on traditions both tangible and intangible, displaying a samovar and the famed blue-and-white porcelain known as Gzhel — named for a village southeast of Moscow — while describing the rituals of brewing and serving tea in the Russian manner with sugar, lemon, honey, jam and spice cookies (pryaniki).
FALL 2020 SERIES
Eugene Onegin
RCAS’s condensed, narrated presentation in 2016 of Tchaikovsky’s
most renowned opera, based on Pushkin’s verse novel of tragic love.
Special guests via Zoom: Narrator Rick Foucheux and performers
Yana Eminova, soprano; and Timothy Mix, baritone.
Tsvetaeva
RCAS’s American premiere in 2018 of three song cycles by
Alexander Zhurbin, dedicated to Silver Age poet Marina Tsvetaeva.
Special guests via Zoom: Composer Alexander Zhurbin,
performers Magdalena Wór, mezzo-soprano and Genadi Zagor, piano.
Russia Cast Adrift
Georgy Sviridov’s 12-song cycle of 1977, set to verses by Sergei Yesenin,
performed at RCAS’s 2018 tribute to baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
Special guests via Zoom: Performers Kevin Wetzel, baritone,
and Vera Danchenko-Stern, piano.
The Queen of Spades
Tchaikovsky’s dramatic adaptation of Pushkin’s supernatural tale,
presented in condensed, narrated form by RCAS in 2017.
Special guests via Zoom: Performers Jennifer Casey Cabot, soprano;
Susana Poretsky, mezzo-soprano; and Victor Antipenko, tenor.
Watch the inaugural fall series of Russian Tea Time With Vera.
Access to the single event is $15 per household.
UPCOMING DATES:
September 13
October 18
November 15
December 6
Watch Tea Time With Vera.
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