The winners of International and All-Russian competitions Olga Shishkina, gusli & Olga Elbourn, piano

When: Saturday 19 October 2024 at 19:00 (doors at 18:30)
Where: The Churchill College chapel, Storey’s Way, Cambridge, CB3 0DE
Format: in person
Tickets: £15 (Standard), £10 (CamRuSS Members, students and concessions)

Please book via AllEvents

PROGRAMME

1. B. Pasquini. Toccata con lo Scherzo Del Cucco
2. A. Vivaldi. Le Printemps, the 1st movement
3. H.F. Handel. Sonata № 6 E Major for violin and piano
4. L.V. Beethoven. 12 variations on a Russian theme in A Major for piano
5. K. Shakhanov. Lullaby
6. Y. Yocoh. Sakura: theme and variations on the Japanese folk song
7. C. Debussy. Estampes. L.100: “I. Pagodes”
8. I’m sitting on a little stone, a traditional Russian folk song
9. Greensleeves, a traditional English folk song A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves
10. N. Rimsky-Korsakov. Dance of the Tumblers from “The Snow Maiden”
11. A. Shalov. Hey, rock, Semyon!
12. V. Tikhov. Ural Mountain Dance

* All material arranged for gusli and piano by O. Shishkina, except №№ 5, 10, 11, 12

Olga Shishkina is an accomplished music professional with over 20 years of experience on the international music scene as a gusli and kantele artist. She performs, teaches, arranges, composes and does studio recording.

Olga Shishkina

Olga performed in some of the best venues in Russia and beyond: Conservatoire Rachmaninoff and Maison russe des sciences et de la culture à Paris (Paris, France), Trinity Episcopal Church and Legacy Art Gallery (Santa Barbara, California), Mariinsky Concert Hall (St Petersburg, Russia), His Majesty Theatre (Aberdeen, Scotland), Royal Swedish Opera (Stockholm, Sweden) and others.

She performed at the Cambridge Summer Music Festival in 2004 where she played together in a duo with Nicholas Collon, the principal conductor of Aurora Orchestra. In 2005 she was invited to perform in Cambridge, again, at the Russian Music Festival organised by Clare College.

During the last few years she composed music for the Finnish documentary “To Siberia with My Love” (dir. P. Flinckenberg) in 2017, and, on the invitations of some prominent musicians, took part in soundtrack recording projects (“Moscow Noir” in Sweden in 2018;  “Torchlight 3” in the USA in 2020).

Olga graduated summa cum laude from St. Petersburg Conservatory named after N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov where she studied gusli, piano, organ, and orchestral conducting (2008). Later, in 2012, she pursued postgraduate studies at Sibelius Academy (Helsinki, Finland). In 2022 she graduated with the highest grade from Berklee College of Music (Boston, Massachusetts).

Olga’s performing repertoire spans from early Baroque and classical music to impressionism which are her own transcriptions and compositions. Please visit Olga’s page on YouTube.

On Monday 21 October Olga will return with a talk “GUSLI: from archaic to the present day” about this music instrument.

Olga Elbourn (nee Samusenko) graduated with the highest honours from the Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory in Russia, as a concert pianist, piano teacher, accompanist and chamber ensemble player, in 2004.

After completing a postgraduate course at the Conservatory in 2006, for the next nine years, she held a post of the Senior Accompanist for Opera singing and Russian Folk instruments classes, working with some of the best-known opera singers and folk instrumentalists. On the concert platform she has collaborated with soloists of the leading opera theatres in various countries, and been a member of many chamber ensembles in Russia and Europe.

She was a prizewinner at numerous international competitions and a recipient of the prestigious Richard Wagner Scholarship in 2007 in Germany.

Since 2014 Olga has been living permanently in Cambridge, UK where she continues her extensive performing and teaching career. She is the Principal Accompanist of St. Ives Choral Society, regularly collaborates with various instrumentalists and singers for performances, and has a large class of piano students.