September 18, 2008
At a time when orchestras are struggling to find an audience, the 21-year-old California Symphony enjoyed its most successful season ever in 2007-08, the result of innovative programming that fused classical music with pop culture entertainment.
On October 12 & 14, founder and music director Barry Jekowsky will go even further – with an unprecedented presentation of Samuel Barber’s profoundly-moving Adagio for Strings interpreted through movement by two former Cirque du Soleil hand-balancing artists.
“Though breathtaking by itself, when Adagio for Strings is performed with Iouri and Nikolai, it becomes a spectacular collaboration of music and body sculpture,” says Jekowsky, who gave the Russian-born acrobats their symphony debut at the Reno Philharmonic last December. “What they do visually with music is extraordinary.”
Currently starring in the Las Vegas hit, “V the Ultimate Variety Show,” Iouri Safronov and Nikolai Meinkov are two of only a handful of world-class hand-balancing artists working today. Classically-trained in circus acrobatics in their native Russia, their mastery of gravity-defeating feats evolved from years on the high wire as flying trapeze artists, beginning with the Moscow Circus. Prior to forming their own act in 2000, both enjoyed long runs in major Vegas productions – Meinkov in Cirque Du Soleil’s critically-acclaimed “Mystere,” and Safronov as the featured trapeze act in MGM Casino’s “EFX,” starring Michael Crawford.
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