St Petersburg’s Terem-Quartet is a unique
orchestra – an ensemble that opens up unchartered musical territories,
an innovative ensemble and the first ensemble in the world
that also composes music. Since the very day that it was founded on
26 November 1986 this musical ensemble has never been afraid to
experiment. Collaborating with jazz and rock musicians, concerts with symphony
orchestras and folklore ensembles, opera and ballet projects, a performance
at the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest with a rousing version of
legendary stage hits and even performing at Karl Lagerfeld’s House of Chanel
Paris–Moscow fashion show – all of this bears witness to
the continued artistic discoveries the Terem-Quartet Russian musical
ensemble has been making ever since it was established a quarter of
a century ago.
Vasily Gerello’s career and that of the Terem-Quartet’s musicians first
came together as far back as 1989 (at the time they were still students at
the Leningrad Conservatoire). The musicians still consider the most
extraordinary event in their lives to be an impromptu performance
in the Stockholm underground. With their inherently youthful fervour,
they stood in a pedestrian tunnel and performed a live
concert – the furore following which the musicians remember to
this day… The unusual energy and explosive emotionality that crosses all
linguistic and cultural barriers, the bewitching honesty and unusual
sincerity that warms the hearts of the audience – all of this
together has furthered their astounding artistic union.