Solo and Chamber Recital with Jonathan Russell

Cal Poly Pomona music department presents

Shpachenko and Friends Chamber Music Festival featuring Cal Poly Pomona professor Nadia Shpachenko and distinguished guest artist Jonathan Russell

Unbreakable Spirit: Music of Resilience

Jonathan Russell, composer and clarinetist

Nadia Shpachenko, pianist

Composer, clarinetist, bass clarinetist, conductor, teacher and writer Jonathan Russell will join Cal Poly Pomona professor and GRAMMY® Award-winning pianist Nadia Shpachenko in a moving concert titled Unbreakable Spirit: Music of Resilience. First half of the concert will feature Russell’s Still Here for clarinet and piano commissioned by a consortium of 52 clarinetists, inspired by the resilience of the Ukrainian people during the current Russian invasion; Olivier Messiaen’s Abyss of the Birds from Quartet for the End of Time, written by Messiaen at the prisoner-of-war camp in Görlitz, Germany during World War II; and previews of new compositions by Ludmila Yurina and Ethan Gans-Morse about the war in Ukraine, Shpachenko’s home country. In the second half Dr. Shpachenko will perform beloved works by Frédéric Chopin paired with Chopin-inspired pieces by Ukrainian composers.