PIAZZOLLA-QUINTET

Artistic director
Honoured Art Worker of Russia
Honoured Artist of Russia
Mikhail KHOKHLOV (piano)
Mario DURAND (violin, vocal)
Yuri MEDIANIK (bayan, bandoneon)
Andrey DOYNIKOV (percussion)
Mikhail KHOKHLOV (double-bass)

We were taught to play Bach and Mozart. And in the breaks between our lessons we reveled in improvisation of Armstrong's themes shattering an old piano with four hands.
We sang and wrote dictations at our solfeggio lessons and we tried to play the Beatles' songs by ear for our own pleasure.
We studied various composers from Palestrina to Schoenberg at our lessons of musical literature, harmony and instrumentation and relaxed to the music of Jackson and Latinos.
And in Piazzolla's music we find everything we seek in any kind of music - the rhythm of heartbeat and vibration of human soul: ecstasy and devastation, happiness and yearning, dreams and despairЕ It seems to be a fused reflection of our present day reality.
The date of our first performance was set for March 11th, 2001 - Piazzolla's 80th anniversary. And it is quite natural that at this jubilee concert the chamber orchestra "Gnesin Virtuosi" and an ensemble of soloists with myself as a conductor played Piazzolla's music.
At that time nobody could foresee that one day some musicians who took part in that concert will form a new ensemble called "Piazzolla-Quintet". We then went on tour to Spain with the same program and decided to record it on a CD when the tour was over. During the recording we came to the conviction that Piazzolla's musical style is very much in tune with our souls that made us want to play it to show its richness and beauty to our audience.
The main goal of our ensemble is not only to highlight improvisation, jazz and Latin-American elements of Piazzolla's music but also render its depth and dramatic nature which is a must for those who perform music by such generally recognized classics as Rakhmaninov, Gershwin and Berg among others.

Mikhail Khokhlov