It's not every day you get to hear Russian Folk Music live. I've had the good fortune to experience it twice in one month. The UW Madison's Russian Folk Orchestra is a mostly string ensemble made up of largely of balalaikas (a triangular lute), and domras (a relative of the mandolin). Also included are a flute and oboe, a tambourine, and occasionally drums and chimes.
My family went on April the 14th to see them RFO perform at the Stoughton Opera House, and then two nights ago I took my brother to see them perform at Oakwood Village in Madison.
I could not find fault with the performance at all. What I can say is that it's a very unique experience to hear these traditional instruments in action. Some of the songs were traditional tunes, some were original pieces, and some were arrangements of Classical music redone for traditional instruments. The maestro wrote a few interesting tunes, the one we heard performed was an instrumental piece based off of Pushkin's poem "The Cart of Life". But perhaps the ones that stuck out to me the most were an arrangement of Scott Joplin's "The Easy Winners" of all things, the "Butterfly Polka", the Russian folk song "The Moon Shines", and an arrangement of Khachaturian's famous "Sabre Dance" from his ballet The Corsair.
I think I'll go see them again next season.
