On the first Thursday of each month, the DC Public Library and the Goethe-Institut Washington present a lunchtime chamber music performance open to the public. Standards from the classical repertoire will be presented by internationally-known, local musicians Ralitza Patcheva and Vasily Popov and special guests.
The series opens with Patcheva and Popov playing music of the German composer Robert Schumann.
Vasily Popov (cello) and Ralitza Patcheva (piano), a husband and wife duo, co-chair the Chamber Music Department at Levine Music.
Vasily Popov was born into a musical family in St. Petersburg and has performed extensively both as soloist and chamber musician in Germany, Russia, Belgium, Finland, Italy and the United States. He is a prize winner at the All-Russian Competition and the Gartow Foundation Competition. He was an artist-member of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation “Live Music Now” and the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra. He has collaborated with Andras Adorjan and Wolfgang Boettcher in Germany and was a Young Performing Scholar at the “Villa Musica” Concert Organization in Mainz. He has recorded the Haydn and Boccherini cello concerts on the Excelsior label. He has been praised for his “wonderful dynamic range and colorful bow strokes,” his “great sense of style and brilliant technique,” and his “Mozartean clarity with heart-felt personal expression.”
Ralitza Patcheva is a versatile pianist, equally adept at performing early, classical, and modern music. She is a prizewinner at international competitions and has soloed with the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, DC), the Jena Philharmonic (Germany), the Haydn Orchestra (Italy), Arlington Symphony, Alexandria Symphony and Williamsburg Symphonia, and has given recitals at the Kennedy Center, the Phillips Collection, the Embassy Series (Washington), and major international concert venues, includinge Gewandhaus (Leipzig), St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall, Gasteig (Munich), Villa Musica (Mainz) and the Jubilee Hall (Aldeburgh). She has been praised for her “elegant pianistic technique,” “courageous, innovative interpretation,” and “crystal tone, amalgamation of witty virtuosity, powerful expressivity, and profound sensitivity.”
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