Enter The Fadolín – live at Bargemusic, September 24

Last week we received some season brochures from local arts institutions in the mail — I leafed through them while washing dishes and promptly put the brochures in our recycling bin. Then a minute later, I realized — this was PTSD — and took the brochures back out for further inspection. We haven’t planned to attend anything — indoors, especially — in well over a year. New habits didn’t take too long to form. I had given these brochures the equivalent of a “Like” and moved on.

On Friday the 24th, I’m excited to play my solo fadolín program at Bargemusic. Some of this program was conceived in real time on Facebook Live, some of it was born while busking on our street corner, a few of the pieces were born during pre-pandemic travel. There is some Bach and O’Carolan and Dvorak on the program, too, and a premiere of a new work by my dad Alexander Zhurbin. (!) Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the honor to play portions of this program in intimate house concerts — now it’s time to take it to a bigger, but still very intimate, stage.

Bargemusic is a vaccine-only venue that seats around 70. I’m very grateful to friends who have already bought tickets to the performance — you are conquering your fear and coming to experience a pretty unique program on a really special instrument, the fadolín. You are supporting one of New York’s most incredible venues that, for 45 years, has floated in the Brooklyn harbor and served chamber music and recitals in its acoustically warm room, long before that part of Brooklyn was “cool”.

I know how stressful and nerve-wracking it is to go out these days — I am dealing with it, too. But it’s also exciting — last week in Vilnius, where this picture was taken, I went to see an opera — 99% of the audience wore masks, 99% of them wore it over their noses, and you know what? It’s as if all the masks melted into one immense invisible protection shield — I felt safe, there was no fear, only the art on the stage.

So, we try to move on and go step by step. I’m excited to play this program, excited to get back into indoor spaces, hoping for the best and mostly feeling immensely grateful that we’ve all made it this far, remembering those who were not as lucky.

See you out there!
Thank you, friends.

-Ljova

P.S. Here is the ticket / video / info link: https://www.ljova.com/about/projects/enter-the-fadolin/

Photo © by Tomas Terekas