Peter Vostokov’s Big Jazz Orchestra — Legends of Soviet Jazz

On December 6, marking the 100th anniversary of the Russian jazz scene, the Big Jazz Orchestra led by Peter Vostokov will present a spectacular final concert dedicated to the music of Soviet jazz bands and popular orchestras at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.

The performance will be the culmination of an entire year of meticulous work devoted to discovering and studying original scores by Russian composers and arrangers who worked in the genre.

The concert programme will offer a comprehensive retrospective of the emergence and development of jazz in Russia — a new art form of the 20th century that also provides a fascinating way to explore the country’s history.

Audiences will embark on an exciting musical journey, from the first sounds of Valentin Parnakh and Alexander Tsfasman in the 1920s, through the songs of Isaac Dunayevsky and Alexander Varlamov in the 1930s; from the jazz compositions of Leonid Utyosov and Viktor Knushevitsky, performed during the Great Patriotic War, and the music of the so-called “Saxophone Straightening Era,” to the work of the outstanding ensembles of the 1950s–1970s, including the orchestras of Oleg Lundstrem, Vadim Ludvikovsky, Iosif Weinstein, and Yuri Saulsky, and finally to Anatoly Kroll’s music for the legendary film We Are from Jazz.

The concert will also feature large-scale works, including Dmitri Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite and Murad Kazhlaev’s African Concerto, a remarkable composition that is rarely performed today.