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DISCUSSION: John Dante Prevedini leads a discussion about Improvisation in the classical world and beyond, including contributions from David Arditti, James Lewitzke, James Ross and Steve Vasta.
Russian cellist, composer and conductor Yuri Alexandrovich Falik was born in Odessa on 30 July 1936 into a family of orchestral musicians, so he attended many orchestral rehearsals and opera productions when a young child.
Family tragedy and trauma - his father died in action in World War II, and he and his mother were evacuated to Kyrgystan - influenced Yuri Falik's output as a composer.
After returning to Odessa, he began to learn the cello, and began composing at school. He developed a special interest in writing string quartets, organising his own group to play his own music and that of other Soviet composers.
He studied cello at the Leningrad Conservatory and developed a busy career as a solo cellist, but still continued to compose. He was greatly inspired by meeting Igor Stravinsky.
Yuri Falik died in St Petersburg on 23 January 2009, aged seventy-two, leaving much choral, chamber, symphonic and piano music.
Echoes of Oblivion by Robert McCarney - Four by Four by Five fff