About Ljova

Ljova is an independent artist and depends on fans and friends like you to spread the word about his music. You can help him in several ways -- and make great friends in the process!

• Join Ljova's mailing list. One or two times a month, Ljova will keep you posted on his latest news and performances.

• Spread the word about Ljova's music on the Internet! Review Ljova's CD on CDBaby and Amazon.com! Become one of his "friends" on MySpace.com/Ljova, and Last.fm, discuss his music in newsgroups, forums, and elsewhere online.
• Call/email to request Ljova's music at radio stations, your favorite online radio shows or podcasts. If you're told they don't have a copy of his CD, direct them to Ljova's website. And let Ljova know too because he'll gladly send stations a demo.
• Listen and rate Ljova's newest tracks & oldies-but-goodies on the FolkAlley online radio
• Network with other Ljova fans and help set up live performances in your area via Ljova's page on Eventful: Demand!
• Host a House Concert and invite Ljova to perform. Hosting concerts in your home is a great way to see a performer in an intimate setting with a group of friends (and make some new friends!)
  Contact Ljova to learn more about hosting a house concert!

• And, of course, buy Ljova's CD!, get them as gifts for your friends, and recommend it to other music lovers!
  Contact Ljova to discuss a special discount and incentive for Street Team members!



Any support you provide is greatly appreciated and very valuable. Please contact Ljova with more ideas!

THREE WAYS TO ORDER:

$14.99

$9.99 (instant download)

$16.49

New Yorkers can also pick up a copy at Other Music and Downtown Music Gallery.
...or call 1-800-BUY-MY-CD to order by phone!

THIS IS IT! FIVE YEARS IN THE MAKING! The long-awaited debut release of maverick composer, arranger, and violist Ljova (Lev Zhurbin) draws on a multitude of cross-cultural influences, and is performed almost exclusively on multi-tracked viola. In addition to a busy career as a performer and film composer, Ljova is a frequent collaborator with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Project, the Kronos Quartet, Osvaldo Golijov, as well as many independent artists. From blues to Bjork, to Latin and Gypsy dances, to a nostalgic Russian street-waltz (featuring Michael Ward-Bergeman on accordion), Ljova transcends the boundaries of his instrument. Using inventive improvisation and arranging techniques, his compositions dazzle with intricate textures, odd rhythms and lilting melodies, creating music that is both fresh and timeless.

==>Listen to a podcast about VJOLA: WORLD ON FOUR STRINGS from NPR's "Weekend America" and host Anastasia Tsioulcas!

PREVIEW and TRACK LISTING:

1. Central Park in the Dark
2. Bagel on the Malecon
3. O'er
4. Plume
5. Ori's Fearful Symmetry
6. Coffee + Rum
7. Middle Village
8. Army of Me
9. Garmoshka (featuring Michael Ward-Bergeman on accordion)
10. Crosstown
11. Seltzer, Do I Drink Too Much?
12. Four
13. Collage
14. Breadbasket Blues
15. Spring Valley Sunset

REVIEWS:

====>See complete reviews here
This self-released debut recording from 27-year-old Russian-born Lev Zhurbin (aka Ljova), one of New York's fastest-rising composers and instrumentalists, is something special... Ljova continually delights
---Anastasia Tsioulcas, Billboard (July 22, '06)

[Ljova] is an cclectic with an ear for texture...Throaty melodies supported by pizzicato rhythms, lush choral figures and counterpoint.
---Allan Kozinn, NEW YORK TIMES Arts & Leisure, August 13, 2006 (Review of VJOLA)

Best of June 2006 New Releases
---John Schaefer, host of WNYC's New Sounds and Soundcheck

Rustic dances and evocative soundscapes, all crafted from ... the gorgeously grainy purr of his fiddle.
---Steve Smith, Time Out New York (July 6-12, '06)

Extraordinarily talented and versatile musician
---Yo-Yo Ma, cellist

Proves that an integration between seemingly different cultures is possible, inevitable, and fruitable
---Osvaldo Golijov, composer

VJOLA: WORLD ON FOUR STRINGS:

This self-released debut recording from 27-year-old Russian-born Lev Zhurbin (aka Ljova), one of New York's fastest-rising composers and instrumentalists, is something special... Ljova continually delights
---Anastasia Tsioulcas, BILLBOARD (July 22, '06)
"An album of solo viola music doesn't usually grab the spotlight. However, this self-released debut recording from 27-year-old Russian-born Lev Zhurbin (aka Ljova), one of New York's fastest-rising composers and instrumentalists, is something special. Using his rich-voiced viola as his multitracked and quick-witted medium, Ljova weaves together diverse elements from around the world to create surprising, yet organic textures in mostly original material (save Björk's "Army of Me" and a traditional Romanian tune). From the honky-tonk drawl of "Coffee & Rum" to the Cuban son of "Bagel on the Malecon" to the Balkan slides of "Middle Village," Ljova continually delights."

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Eclectic with an ear for texture...Throaty melodies supported by pizzicato rhythms, lush chordal figures and counterpoint.
---Allan Kozinn, NEW YORK TIMES Arts & Leisure (August 13, 2006)
LEV ZHURBIN, a Russian-born violist who works under the name Ljova, seems to be everywhere lately. He has arranged music for the Kronos Quartet and for Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, composed soundtracks for a handful of films and turned up regularly in New York freelance ensembles.

For this debut CD Mr. Zhurbin, who is 27 and lives in New York, has taken a route increasingly favored by both pop and classical musicians: he recorded the music mostly in his home studio and released it on his own label.

Except for an eerily atmospheric cover of Bjork’s “Army of Me” and an arrangement of a Romanian folk song, the works here are originals. And except for an accordion line in one piece, Mr. Zhurbin does all the playing, multitracking his viola so that throaty melodies are supported by pizzicato rhythms, lush chordal figures and counterpoint.

He is an eclectic, with an ear for texture. In the opening “Central Park in the Dark” (no relation to the Ives work), the viola tone is deep and recorded with enough closely focused grittiness to put its songlike melody line in perspective. Modal blues melodies are heard in several works, both directly (in “Crosstown” and “Breadbasket Blues”) and in odd mixtures (with African folk music in “Plume”). “Bagel on the Malecon” borrows Latin rhythms, and Mr. Zhurbin also touches on country music (in “Coffee & Rum”) and Middle Eastern dance figures (in “Ori’s Fearful Symmetry”).

Still, his best works are more fully in classical styles. “Collage,” for one, uses electronic loops to create a Minimalist texture. And if “Spring Valley Sunset,” an unadorned solo rhapsody recorded in a field, with bird song and other attendant noises, is sonically the least polished track, it is nevertheless the most strikingly original and soulful.

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This eclectic violist's music is anything but plain folk
---Justin Davidson, Newsday
Quick, name a violist, any violist! There are plenty of marvelous ensemble players and two or three who live by the handful of oddball concertos, but nobody quite like the polymath Lev Zhurbin, who likes to be known by his diminutive, Ljova.

Though he was born in the string quarry of Russia and refined in the purifying precincts of Juilliard, Zhurbin turned out to be a lover of gritty hybrids. The music he writes and plays is full of Brahmsian tone, Bartók lines, hiccuping Hungarian rhythms, Klezmer soul and the sexy plaintiveness of tango and the blues.

Zhurbin and the group Vjola Contraband played the late set at Joe's Pub on Wednesday, and the crowded, overheated room was the perfect venue for young musicians still scouting out their own creative terrain. The violist, whose pleasantly geeky stage presence contrasted with the swagger of his sound, described traveling around Hungary and Transylvania in search of the perfect folk tune.

Bartók must have been on his mind, since the Hungarian composer was one of the first and most crucial ethnographers of Eastern Europe's rural traditions. But while Bartók scoured the countryside for the voice of his country's people, Zhurbin's spiritual home is really Queens, that living anthology of ethnic music. It's poetic, really, that a master of the middle-voiced instrument should write a soulful piece named for the neighborhood of Middle Village.

Like many of the most interesting and entrepreneurial musicians of his generation (he was born in 1978), Zhurbin is an avid collector of influences, beginning with his father, Alexander Zhurbin, the composer of a Russian rock-opera version of the Orpheus tale.

The band is likewise a purist's nightmare. The Swiss percussionist Mathias Kunzli sat astride a cajón, a beatable box of Peruvian birth, and tapped out rhythms that commuted between Havana and Sarajevo. The accordionist, Patrick Farrell, hails from Cajun country, and his chameleonic instrument now took on the hues of a Buenos Aires bandoneón, now a gypsy squeezebox.

Of course, you don't get good music just by raking together a pile of ethnic traditions and jumping in. What matters is the personality behind the mix and the technique to extract all the various essences. Ljova's command of the viola extends from the quiet melancholy with which he draws out a slow melody to high-speed flaming licks.

In concert, he mocked his own propensity for limping meters, intricate harmonies and moderate tempos. "I always feel like fast music goes too slowly," he said. I know what he means: When beats click by quickly, music can get simplified, like a car speeding boringly along a straight desert road. So, just to prove himself wrong, Zhurbin and the band batted out a dizzying, up-tempo piece with syncopations so insistent and a downbeat so shifty that it felt like it had reversed direction in mid-measure.

If this sounds like music you wish you hadn't missed, there's always his Ljova's new CD: "Vjola: World on Four Strings."

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Best of June 2006 New Releases
---John Schaefer, host of WNYC's New Sounds and Soundcheck

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Rustic dances and evocative soundscapes, all crafted from ... the gorgeously grainy purr of his fiddle.
---Steve Smith, Time Out New York (July 6-12, '06)
"The borders separating classical music, folk, jazz and pop grow blurrier every day, rubbed out by intrepid explorers from all points along the musical spectrum. Russian-born violist-composer Lev "Ljova" Zhurbin stakes an especially choice claim on uncharted territory with his solo debut. Employing skills honed alongside Yo-Yo Ma, the Kronos Quartet and Osvaldo Golijov, Ljova mixes rustic dances and evocative soundscapes, all crafted from little more than the gorgeously grainy purr of his fiddle."

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World Music Pick
---NPR Weekend America

"Any classical musician will tell you the viola is the Rodney Dangerfield of musical instruments. It never gets any respect because it always plays second fiddle to the violin. World Music critic Anastasia Tsioulcas says that's about to change."

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Like many younger musicians, this leader has absorbed a panoply of music and gleefully undermines rigid notions of genre.
---Sean Patrick Fitzell, ALL ABOUT JAZZ (February 2007)
Unlike the piano or saxophone, there is little precedent for solo viola albums in jazz or creative music. For his ambitious debut, Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin confronts that challenge with a compelling set of tunes reflecting a voracious range of stylistic influences, performed almost exclusively on viola. Lacking the tendency for shrillness of its smaller cousin, the violin, or the cello’s propensity for melancholy, the viola offers a broad aural spectrum, which Zhurbin expertly weaves into rich soundscapes with multitracking and elegant solo statements.

“Central Park in the Dark” stirs a plangent tone with the lone voice slowly unfurling its tale. Zhurbin, a veteran film scorer, effectively creates narratives with a shifting dynamic flow. A bright pizzicato lays the rhythmic foundation of “Bagel on the Malecon,” supporting the long, yearning melodic line and a bouncy counterpart. The layers blend seamlessly, and despite the fact that they were played separately and overdubbed, there is a sense of interaction. Zhurbin attained this feel by recording the sections in close succession for an overall sound that is natural and not stilted by the multitracking.

“Coffee and Rum” boasts a vaguely old-timey feel that sways with charming ease. Zhurbin demonstrates the viola’s range with a bass line on “Crosstown” that propels the sly blues. The ever-inspirational Björk's “Army of Me” is radically deconstructed and reworked; Zhurbin teases the melody before abstrusely stating it amid swirling overtones. Michael Ward-Bergeman’s accordion on “Garmoshka” imbues a sense of Eastern European folk music, a flavor sprinkled throughout the Russia-born Zhurbin’s album. Like many younger musicians, this leader has absorbed a panoply of music and gleefully undermines rigid notions of genre.

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From the poignant to the jolly... a superb player and composer, a Brilliant Debut. (Top 10 Jewish Records of 2006)
---George Robinson, THE JEWISH WEEK (December '06)
After hearing this extraordinary album, you'll never tell another viola joke again. Ljova, a.k.a. Lev Zhurbin, a Russian emigre now living in New York City, is a superb player and composer, and this set mostly of originals ranges in emotion and colors across the globe. Multi-tracked alongside accordionist Michael Ward-Bergeman, Ljova is a virtuosic violist who can make the instrument do just about anything, and the set runs gracefully from the poignant to the jolly. A Brilliant debut.
Rating: 5 stars

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No barriers...Fluid stylistic grace...
---Ken Smith, GRAMOPHONE Magazine (October '06)
World influences are there but Ljova still loves NY... Tempting though it is to suggest of a solo viola recording that no one else wanted to be involved, the viola player Lev Zhurbin, a frequent sideman and arranger for the likes of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble and the Kronos Quartet, has already proven he can work and play well with others. For Zhurbin, who goes by the professional name of Ljova (the informal Russian for Lev), this multi-track debut album is clearly a case of lonership by choice. Although figures such as Edgar Meyer and Osvaldo Golijov have caused a stir in some circles for breaking down genre barriers, younger players and composers (often the same person) generally have a hard time figuring out what the fuss is about. Having no such barriers, their best work reflects a fluid stylistic grace.

Enter 28-year-old Zhurbin, a Moscow-born, New York-based composer/performer who mirrors the best traits of his adopted city, where a wealth of cultures enjoy most of the benefits and none of the baggage they face in their native land. More than a decade ago, the Argentine-Israeli Golijov found a decidedly American voice in linking tango and klezmer in ways found in neither Tel Aviv nor Buenos Aires. Much the same can be said of Zhurbin, though his stylistic palette is considerably broader.

Russian and French street waltzes come together in Garmoshka. Various dance forms from Cuba, Mali and Romania (to cite a few) co-exist harmonically and rhythmically as if sharing the same tribal roots. And from the urban noise aesthetic of O'er and Collage, the latter sounding like a Philip Glass riff as mixed by Brian Eno, Zhurbin basks in the outdoors of Spring Valley Sunset, an 11-minute raga-inspired viola line amid a nature soundscape. Zhurbin admits that he recorded each track with only a melodic sketch, which probably accounts for the freedom not only in each musical line but in the way those lines interact.
My only complaint, as a longtime New Yorker, is the cloying local references in titles like Bagel on the Malecon or Seltzer, do I drink too much?, which make me think that Zhurbin needs to get out of city once in a while. It's clear from the music itself, though, that he gets everything he needs there already.

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Ljova's melodies have the tuneful, emotive quality of good pop.
---Alexander Gelfand, JAZZIZ Magazine (April 2007)

...This past January, the Russian-born, New York City-based violist Ljova and his Vjola Contraband drew a full house at Joe's Pub in Manhattan, forcing fans to stand three-deep at the room's swanky, dimly lit bar. Rarely have I seen so many young, attractive people pay to hear a band with no less than two violists not to mention an accordion player, an acoustic bassist, and a percussionist who bears a striking resemblance to Sideshow Bob. Yet there they were in astonishing numbers, knocking back $10 cocktails and whooping it up at the end of every tune.

Ljova, otherwise known as Lev Zhurbin, was born in Moscow in 1978 and emigrated to the States in 1990 with his parents, the composer Alexander Zhurbin and the writer Irena Ginzburg. He graduated from Juilliard and immediately took off in all directions. He has written music for folk, jazz, and classical ensembles; has arranged world-music material for marquee groups such as the Kronos Quartet and Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble; has composed music for film; and, with his fellow composers Ronen Landa and Jonathan Zalben, co-founded Mediant Music, a commercial-music production company that has worked on projects for the likes of Kraft and Coca-Cola.

The music that Ljova performs with his Vjola Contraband is deeply indebted to European folk traditions, though you'd be hard pressed to pinpoint a precise origin. Looking a bit like Maxwell Smart talking into his shoe-phone, the bespectacled 28-year old spoke directly into his instrument's microphone-pickup between tunes. But when he mentioned his "strong bias toward uneven meters," he wasn't just talking. The off-kilter rhythms he favors recall the asymmetrical dance beats of central and southeastern Europe, where time signatures tend to look like hat sizes (7/8, 13/8, 15/16). They tug and pull at you in strange and mysterious ways, as do Ljova's melodies, which have the tuneful, emotive quality of good pop.

Occasionally, he makes direct reference to his source material. One as-yet-unnamed tune was inspired by music Ljova heard in Hungary while traveling with his girlfriend, Inna Barmash, lead singer for the Gypsy-klezmer-funk band Romashka....

Back home, he sought to capture the unique rhythms employed in the Hungarian town of Szek, where the dancers appear to have what he jokingly called "a really organized way of stumbling from side to side." Despite the goofy introduction, the tune itself turned out to be a haunting drone-like lament that made me instantly homesick for my wife and child. Pathetic? Yes. But impressive, too - at least on Ljova's part. Music rarely punches my emotional buttons that way. And it almost never makes me feel anything remotely resembling lonesomeness or longing.

The emotion most often summoned by a Ljova performance, however, is elation. His tunes frequently display the kind of driving punch-drunk intensity that typifies Raymond Scott's music -- especially the "Powerhouse" theme that accompanies all of the assembly-line scenes in those old Warner Bros. cartoons. And Ljova's colleagues take obvious pleasure locking into the tricky grooves and intricate parts evident in so much of the band's repertoire.

Ljova repays the favor with beneficence on the bandstand. Given his own considerable skills, the Vjola Contraband could be just a star vehicle for its leader. But Ljova promotes many compositions by fellow band members. He appears to be equally happy backing a bandmate or creating a scene-stealing solo. On those rare occasions when he does grab the spotlight, his performance displays the same rhythmic and melodic flair as his writing. More typically, however, he simply plays lead on a composition then gracefully steps aside. I especially liked the results on "Tango for Patty," a showpiece for accordionist Patrick Farrell, who occasionally threw in some jazzy dissonance alongside his Eastern-European melodic inflections.

Perhaps Ljova's humility came from years spent playing second fiddle to violinists. Or maybe he already knows something that many musicians - and most people in general - only learn later in life: the more you give, the more you receive.

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Extraordinarily talented and versatile musician
---Yo-Yo Ma, cellist

"...[Ljova] is an extraordinarily talented and versatile musician, who has an incredible understanding of the intricacies of the imaginative mind."

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Proves that an integration between seemingly different cultures is possible, inevitable, and fruitful
---Osvaldo Golijov, composer

"I am simply in awe of Lev's talents. He is one of the outstanding exponents of a new generation of musicians that I consider, in a good sense, mutants. Equally at home in a chamber group or symphony orchestra playing the canon of the literature or the most complex modernistic settings, or imaginatively improvising on folk melodies with musicians from around the world, Lev proves that an integration between seemingly different cultures is possible, inevitable, and fruitful. He and the other leaders of his generation are, in my view, the people that will ensure that music remains vital to the minds and hearts of a wide spectrum of people.
As a composer, arranger and violist, Lev reconnects with the tradition of composer-performer-improviser that was the norm in the past and is fortunately coming back. He does all his work at an extraordinary level."

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Sneaky music ... sly and free of cliché
---Drew Daniel, of the group Matmos

"Sneaky music. [The] Bjork cover was sly and free of cliché, which can show up awful quick when a stringed instrument folows a vocal melody. We liked it."

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Rich moods...the dances, the brooding and then lovely melodies, the Bartok tension and angst...
---Kevin Berger, Salon.com
"Your playing is deft and accomplished and pungent but mostly I like the range of the music, and the rich moods that goes with the songs. The dances, the brooding and then lovely melodies, the Bartok tension and angst, oh, don't think you can sneak that tune "O'er" by us. "Garmoshka" with the
accordion evokes a vibrant East European bazaar and yet it's somehow the essence of New York just the same. I'm amazed that you can get a viola to sound like a bass in so many places. In fact, it's the bass lines that you go soaring from that surprised and delighted me throughout. The Bjork cover is inspired."

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Russian violist's improv is stunning...a dazzlingly vivid and dynamically vibrant portrait that sparkles with energy and sways to its own rhythms

---Edward Reichel, Deseret News (Utah)
Ljova, whose real name is Lev Zhurbin, is a young Russian composer and violist living in New York City. With "Vjola," a collection of mostly original pieces, Ljova takes the listener on a musical tour through the sprawling metropolis' many ethnic and cultural neighborhoods.
And the music is as eclectic as the city itself. Ljova has managed to create a dazzlingly vivid and dynamically vibrant portrait that sparkles with energy and sways to its own rhythms.
What is particularly stunning with "Vjola" is that everything you hear on this album is played by Ljova, who recorded each instrumental track separately. And much of this music has been improvised.
The result is an ingenious collection of pieces from someone who obviously has something to say, and who makes a concerted effort to present his musical thoughts with originality. Ljova certainly has created an entertaining and captivating CD.
Except for Bjork's "Army of Me" and the Romanian folk song "Seltzer, Do I Drink Too Much," all of the pieces are Ljova's own.
He frequently draws his inspiration for these pieces from jazz and Astor Piazzolla, but they all have a distinctive sound that you quickly come to discover is Ljova's own voice.
"Vjola" is appealing and thoroughly enjoyable.

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Technical mastery ... from the sprightly tango ... to the deliciously bluesy
---Scott Gianelli, Greenman Review
Vjola succeeds not simply because of Ljova's technical mastery of his instrument, but also because he can compose and arrange in styles from very different parts of the globe and make the tunes sound like they belong together. His segue way from the sprightly tango "Ori's Fearful Symmetry" to the deliciously bluesy "Coffee+Rum" is especially effective. Other highlights include the cleverly titled "Bagel on the Malecon" and the waltz "Garmoshka," which features guest accordionist Michael Ward-Bergeman... I was enchanted by the high, dissonant harmonics that accompany "O'er" and the radically re-interpreted cover of Bjork's "Army of Me".

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Tалантливая, мелодически и темброво привлекательная, темпераментная, самостоятельная и умелая смесь практически всего
M. Pritsker, Novoe Russkoe Slovo

Диск своих собственных сочинений Лев Журбин, который давно уже выступает просто как Лева (LJOVA), назвал «VJOLA: World On Four Strings» («Мир на четырех струнах»).
Первое слово, где перемени одну букву — и будет Viola, то есть «альт», на котором давно и хорошо играет 28-летний Журбин (некогда ученик ЦМШ, Манхэттенской школы музыки и Джульярда), содержит те же буквы, что и Ljova. Игра букв и слов сразу привлекает внимание. А человека русского привлечет еще и фамилия Журбин (кто не знает Журбина-отца, то есть московского композитора Александра Журбина!), а также название фирмы, которая выпустила диск: Kapustnik.
Впрочем, Леву и так хорошо знают, причем в самых разных музыкальных кругах: его имя появляется в программках квартета «Кронос», проекта Йо Йо Ма «Шелковый путь» и концертов музыки Освальдо Голихова: Журбин неоднократно делал аранжировки для этих и других программ и нередко сам участвовал в них в качестве альтиста, а к тому же аккомпанировал гению тэпа Сэвиону Гловеру, играл с джазистом Баки Пиццарелли, не говоря уж о традиционных ансамблях – трио, квартетах, квинтетах. Он сочиняет звуковые дорожки к фильмам и активно делится новостями своего творчества на собственном сайте www.Ljova.com, где можно еще и услышать его музыку (в его портфеле более 70 композиций).
Не ожидая милостей от природы (то бишь от больших звукозаписывающих фирм), Журбин записывает свою музыку прямо у себя дома, и вышеупомянутый диск выпустил под собственным «ярлыком» (см. выше). Исполняет он ее тоже сам: практически все партии во всех пьесах — за исключением «Гармошки», где участвует аккордеонист Майкл Вард-Бергеман, и «Breadbasket Blues», где бас записан на синтезаторе, — Лева играет на своем альте, импровизируя, используя оригинальные технические приемы и сводя все звуковые дорожки вместе – в очень интересную фактуру.
Можно быть уверенным, что диск разойдется сумасшедшими тиражами.
Во-первых, это талантливая, мелодически и темброво привлекательная, темпераментная, самостоятельная и умелая смесь практически всего, что приходится исполнять и слышать Журбину. Так сказать — подведение итогов: латинские ритмы, цыганские напевы, русская меланхолия (в виде вальса с мелодией для аккордеона), американский минимализм, классика, блюз. Добавим к этому яркость и образную точность, выработанную работой в кинематографе — и получим crossover в лучшем виде.
Во-вторых, диск уже получил гору восторженных рецензий: в New York Times, Billboard, TimeOut New York... О Журбине пишут как об одном из самых быстрорастущих композиторов и инструменталистов Нью-Йорка, называют его особенным, а его музыку — свежей и вневре-менной. Джон Шеффер с радио WNYC представил новый диск в своей программе «Лучшие выпуски июня 2006». Освальдо Голихов считает, что с такими как Лёва, связано будущее музыкального искусства.
В-третьих, публика «голосует ушами»: некоторые номера из диска прямо на сайте уже послушали многие тысячи людей, а многие высказались там же, в интернете, и весьма положительно.
Сам Журбин говорит о своем диске как о своего рода музыкальном путешествии, хотя для этого путешествия ему не пришлось покидать Манхэттен. «Это посвящение постоянно меняющимся районам Нью-Йорка, его разным культурам и, конечно, его умелым музыкантам, от ко-торых я черпаю большую часть своего вдохновения».
За исключением двух аранжировок (песня Бьорк «Army of Me» и румынская народная мелодия) все остальные номера диска — оригинальные композиции с очень симпатичными нью-йоркскими названиями и соответствующей атмосферой: «Централ-парк во тьме», «Кофе плюс ром», «Spring Valley Sunset» («Закат в весенней долине»)... Последняя пьеса — соло альта в «окружении» шума природы, шорохов, всплесков, птичьих голосов — особенно понравилась Алану Козину из «Нью-Йорк таймс».
Нам она нравится тоже.

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Viola... the universal instrument
---Misha V. Stefanuk, pianist/composer/organist

We both said after listening to your CD that we want to play viola.... The universal instrument. There are a number of pieces, where the illusion of another life is so strong, I just wanted to go there and stay and never come back!

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Other Press Quotes

"Ljova, viola protégé of Samuel Rhodes, and a rising star in the music world, crossing all genres - classical, gypsy, jazz, world etc. self-taught as a composer (although son of
Alexander Zhurbin) and a Juilliard-polished violist, Ljova is a natural writer. Three pieces of his: Barcarolle(2007), Love Potion Expired (2005, rev. 2007) and Budget Bulgar (2005), formed a crowd-pleasing, yet sophisticated end to this night's program. The first piece, songful and danceable, is for clarinet and marimba. The flute, drum,
viola and marimba with a virtuosic klezmer-like viola part that's danceable by a hummingbird on speed; the flute then takes up the hyper-virtuosity. It's spectacular fun. The last, klezmer-humor, is a country-and-Balkans charmer: better than anything I've ever heard at a Jewish wedding. Wow!"
---Mark Greenfest, reviewing Percussia: Chamber Music for a New World (3/19/07, NY)

Past Press Quotes

"...there's no denying the ingenuity and skill of the arrangements, the native vitality of the music and the brilliance of the playing."
---Richard Dyer, Boston Globe

"... a gripping performance ..."
---Anthony Tommasini, New York Times

"... wonderful playing and composing!"
---David Balakrishnan, founder + violinist, Turtle Island String Quartet

"... feature uses effective creepy violin music by Lev Zhurbin"
---Psychotronic Video Magazine, reviewing the film "Daddy"

"... At all times, I found him to be conscientious, professional and most importantly for my films success; talented. More than a few people have singled out the score as one of DADDY's major assets and it is wholly to Lev's credit both as a composer and as a musician."
-Michael DiPaolo, writer and director of Daddy

"Ears of Doom!"
---Eric Nicolas, songwriter + guitarist (visit his website)

"Ljova, your viola sings! It has a soul of a gypsy, of a vagabond, of a poet, of an old dear friend – all the colors of the musical spectrum are present in your instrument's voice!"
---Inga, songwriter (via MySpace)

"Ljova's viola makes me melt inside...." "
---Rebecca S.

"Musically uninhibited. [Lev Zhurbin] enlightens, exhilarates, and entertains. His trademarks [are] wit, humor, clarity, drive, and passion. Very fresh. Superb.

In his music, his polyglot ability to paint the humorous and the tragic, the coarse and the refined, and to move his audiences, remind me of the broad range and intensity - the facile depths - of another young player/composer, Salzburg’s favorite son, despite the centuries and stylistic differences. Enough already – I like it…"
---Mark Greenfest, of the New Music Connoisseur

"always fun!"
---Kalvos and Damian [K&D New Music Radio]

"Very nice."
---Derek Bailey, guitarist + (pretty much) the father of modern free-improvisation

Reviews for"Sicilienne" (sheetmusic)

"Beautiful!"
--- Kathy Fisher, Fisher

"Beautiful composition and performance! 
It is difficult to write music in this style without sounding
overly sentimental or commercial, but you have done a wonderful 
job of writing a piece that is very enjoyable to listen to,
and still very sophisticated. I will definitely be listening
to more of your music!"
---Tim Tollefson, composer

"Lovely tune, Lev, it's been stuck in
my head all afternoon since I listened!"

---David Runnion, Serafino Piano Trio(Spain)

Reviews for "Spring Valley Sunset"

"THIS IS UTTERLY UNIQUE"
---Anthony Lanman, composer, reviewing for Godsofmusic.com
click
here to read the entire review!

"... almost better than sex(!)..."
---  A. Friend

Reviews for "Mexicana" (A Toast to YOU!) (mp3)

"... had me from the first note"
---J. Bills, Starpolish.com
click
here to read the entire review!

Reviews for "Island Soliloquy" for string orchestra

"[Zhurbin's] soliloquy is melodic, with a decidedly wistful sentimentality, somewhat reminiscnent of the score to the film "Schindler's List." It was a perfect match for the Symphony's lush-sounding strings under the direction of Jonathan Strasser."
---Eileen Siegel, The Staten Island Advance

Reviews for "Sturm" for solo cello

"...finally got a chance to listen. I liked your piece very much. my only reservation is that "sturm" is such a somber title for such a whimsical, delightful piece.
anyway, great work. thanks so much for sending it my way."
---Erik Friedlander, cellist/composer
visit Erik's site!

Reviews for "Lullabye"

"In this versatile Juilliard graduate's huge [online music] archive we find all sorts of pieces within the contemporary-experimental-jazz triangle of genres - however hazy this definition may be. Not everyone will like everything of Lev's work and not everyone will like "Lullabye", but it worked for me. I love it."
---Markus Diedrich, Godsofmusic.com
click
here to read the entire review!

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