IX Tallinn feat. Reval: the story of the seven-string guitar

The story of the seven-string guitar: England, Poland, Ukraine.

Programme includes R. Bremner, I. von Held, A. Sychra, P. Pettoletti, V. Sarenko and others.

Oleg Timofeyev, romantic seven-string guitar (USA).

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Where does the Russian seven-string guitar come from, and why is it tuned so unusually? What connection did this instrument have with the third partition of Poland in 1795? Why were the first seven-string guitarists in Moscow and St Petersburg not Russians but Poles, Czechs or Germans? And how does the Ukrainian dance kozak, or kozachok, help us understand the links between Russian and Polish guitar traditions?

At the concert, Oleg Timofeyev, musicologist, guitarist, composer and documentary film director, one of the most important international experts on this tradition, opens up the exciting history and musical world of the Russian seven-string guitar. In his performance, the music sounds on two historical instruments, the oldest of which dates from as early as 1761.

Oleg Timofeyev holds a master’s degree in early music performance from the University of Southern California and a doctorate from Duke University. He has received two IREX fellowships, two Fulbright research and teaching exchange fellowships, and the prestigious Noah Greenberg Award for his CD “Music of Russian Princesses at the Court of Catherine the Great”. He has recorded more than twenty solo and ensemble albums featuring the music of the seven-string guitar, and has taught at universities and conservatories in the USA, Russia and Ukraine.

His publications include a book on Russian-Romani guitar playing (Centerstream, 2018) and a critical edition of the collected works of Matvei Pavlov-Azantchevsky (with Stefan Weiss, DGA Editions, 2020). In 2023, Cambridge Scholars Publishing released his monograph, the first comprehensive historical study of the seven-string guitar.

More information on concerts with festival tickets, free admission, student concerts with museum tickets, master classes, workshops and meetings is available on the festival website.

Time and place: 28 November 2026, 19:00, Hopneri House, Diele, Raekoja plats 18, Tallinn.