ZBSM violin students Sophie Branson and Nikita Koller have just returned from Russia where they performed famous pieces of classical music with the Togliatti Symphony Orchestra and as a duet at the Moscow Meets Friends Festival.

The 2021 Russian tour for our violin students Sophie Branson and Nikita Koller (14 and 11 years old respectively) began in Togliatti, a big industrial city in the West of the country. They were invited to perform at the Togliatti Philharmonic Hall with the Togliatti Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Alexey Verhoven on May 22nd. Nikita played Kabalevsky’s Violin Concerto in C major and Sophie performed Wieniawski’s Concerto n.2 in D minor and Sarasate’s Gypsy Airs.

For their next performance at the Moscow Meets Friends Festival, which was organized by the Vladimir Spivakov International Charity Foundation, the young violinists formed a special ‘Unison’ duet, and performed Schnittke’s Polka at the festival concert at the Shilov Art Gallery in Moscow on May 25th. This was the first time that Sophie and Nikita performed on stage together, and they enjoyed it a lot.