Wednesday 16 February 2022

SATARSA: Kamerorkest van het Noorden releases EP of music by Maxim Shalygin

On 22 February, Kamerorkest van het Noorden (the string orchestra based in Groningen, The Netherlands) is releasing SATARSA an EP that features SATARSA by the Ukrainian/Dutch composer Maxim Shalygin alongside Shalygin's string orchestra arrangement of music from Schnittke's Choir Concerto.

Shalygin's SATARSA is inspired by the writings of Argentine-French novelist Julio Cortázar (1914-1984) and his ingenious use of palindromes. The composer describes it thus:

"Palindromes in music are just as normal as the Fibonacci numbers in the structure of leaves on the trees. Therefore, when I read the story of Cortazar "Satarsa", I immediately felt the mysterious musical current in it. Surprisingly, for more than 15 years, I periodically return to his unusually rich work and find sources of inspiration for myself. My SATARSA is a desert of pleasure. A desert with gardens of paradise, crooked mirrors and an endless horizon, from which the melodies of our past lives are heard." - Maxim Shalygin

Shalygin (born in the Ukraine in 1985) started studying composition at the age of 16, and went on to study at the St Petersburg Conservatory and the National Music Academy in Kiev, then at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague (NL), where he studied with Cornelis de Bondt and Diderik Wagenaar. Shalygin now lives in the Netherlands.

The orchestra is a relatively new professional, young, international and dynamic ensemble founded by Guillem Cabré Salagre (violinist and violist) and Teodora Nedyalkova (cellist) in 2016 and based in the city of Groningen, capital of the north of The Netherlands. The ensemble consists of 14 to 16 string players, including occasionally wind and percussion, working without a conductor and sharing the vision of an extended version of a string quartet. Emblematic of this belief is the collaboration with the Spanish ensemble, Cuarteto Quiroga.

Kamerorkest van het Noorden & Maxim Shalygin
Kamerorkest van het Noorden & Maxim Shalygin

The EP is released on all major streaming platforms on 22 February 2022, further information from the orchestra's website.

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