An Evening of Andrei Petrov's Music

The idea for the evening came about because many years ago Irina Sadovnikova bought two collections of Andrei Petrov's songs in Saint Petersburg. As usual, the company's reaction to the proposed theme was mixed. Questions followed: why Petrov and not, say, Tariverdiev? why Soviet "pop" rather than the classics? and so on. But the sheet music was already on the music stands, and that was a weighty argument!

The action of the evening took place in a musical "café": tables were set up on the stage, and a vocal-instrumental band was seated in the corner: violin — Anya Chechyotkina, guitar — Alexei Sadovnikov, clarinet — Vadim Rivkin, piano — Irina Sadovnikova. Irina Gorbatova designed the café space. Each participant was told to pick from their own wardrobe an outfit of a certain colour that would go with the decor of the walls.

The weather also took part in the decoration of the evening: each artist entered the "café" from the yard through a glazed door, and the audience saw both the person entering and what was going on in the yard. On one of the evenings the weather was unusual for a California winter — rain with wind. The door opens, Irina Martino comes in, and a storm rages behind her. According to the script she was to walk up to the artificial fireplace, warm her hands, and sing "There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather". Which she did — and it came out very realistic...

At the end of the evening several songs were offered for singing together with the audience. The idea was a success: Andrei Petrov's songs are beloved by everyone and familiar to everyone...