Sergei Kuriokhin + Alex Kan 1988

The visit to Massachusetts by Russian keyboard player Sergei Kuriokhin and music critic Alex Kan was The Arts Company's first project, carried out as part of the Wang Center Consortium, formed in late 1987 with funding from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities to plan and initiate cultural exchanges between the state and the Soviet Union. Their appearances in Boston, Cambridge, Somerville and Worcester were part of a nationwide tour initiated by The Space Agency of Salt Lake City, UT, with funding from the Soros Foundation. Marie Cieri, director of The Arts Company, was coordinating producer for the Wang Center Consortium. 

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Kuriokhin was widely acclaimed as the leading keyboard player in the USSR at the time, playing with groups ranging from the avant-garde Ganelin Trio jazz group to Leningrad's rockers, Aquarium, led by CBS recording artist Boris Grebenshikov. The New York Times critic Jon Parales wrote: "Mr. Kuriokhin is a true discovery. His exhilarating music mixes Cecil Taylor's percussive atonality and Russian modernist harmonies out of Scriabin and Shostakovich, plus bits of Blues and barrelhouse as a sort of comic relief. The pieces sound improvised yet Mr. Kuriokhin brings a dramatic continuity to each one." According to The Space Agency, “The focus of the [solo] tour will be to expose Mr. Kuriokhin to the jazz and contemporary music scene in major cities in the US...and prepare for a commercial tour in 1989.” Music critic Alex Kan at the time was based in Leningrad and was a specialist in Soviet jazz and rock. 

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Kuriokhin's and Kan's schedules in Massachusetts had to be arranged very quickly because the consortium only had two weeks notice of their dates in the state. Alex arrived first, on November 6, 1988, and gave lectures accompanied by audio and video samples at Boston University on November 6 and at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School on November 8.  Sergei arrived on November 7 and that night gave a solo piano concert at Tuckerman Hall in Worcester (preceded by a short introduction to contemporary Soviet music by Kan). On November 8, Sergei spent most of his day at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge and in the early evening appeared at Tower Records in Boston for a short improvisational performance and record signing. (This was Kuriokhin's

first experience with this type of uniquely Western event in a music store.)

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On the night of November 9, Kuriokhin performed twice, first in a solo piano concert at the Wang Center in Boston and then at the Willow Jazz Club in Somerville. At the Willow, he sat in with The Fringe, an avant-garde jazz trio that recently had been named No. 1 Jazz Group in New England by the Boston Music Awards. The four played an extended improvised set after meeting only 10 minutes before. 

Additionally, Sergei came back to the Boston area several days later and on November 15 played at Ryle's jazz club in Cambridge with Soviet double bassist Victor Dvoskin (part of Igor Bril's all-star Soviet band on US tour); Soviet saxophonist Igor Butman (who had moved to Boston in 1987); the American vibraphone master Gary Burton; Boston keyboard player Rachel Nicolazzo; and drummer Martin Richards. UPI's jazz writer Ken Franckling described Sergei's solo during the set:

"Kuryokin's favorite musical element is surprise. He sat alone at an upright piano, delving into a composition he introduced only as 'The Year of 1851.' He made the battered old piano sound like a harpsichord, his blurring hands then mixed in some barrelhouse whimsy, Russian harmonies, and the atonal intensity of Cecil Taylor -- at twice the speed." [Access Franckling's full review below.] 

Besides The Arts Company, The Wang Center Consortium was comprised of the Wang Center for the Performing Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts and JLH Productions (specialists in the logistics of exchange with the Soviet Union).

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