Below is the first and second half of a live concert in Oxford.  It weaved together Tchaikovsky's Seasons with miniatures of the Russian avant garde.  These are rarities by Arthur Lourie, Nikolai Roslavets and Andrei Volkonsky. 

Tchaikovsky's Seasons are often dismissed as salon pieces, and even he called them 'pancakes'.  If so, they must have been written for some extremely accomplished amateurs - they are deceptively simple! The avant garde pieces really illuminate how visionary Tchaikovsky was.  I was intrigued to put together a programme that put a spotlight on common motifs echoing between the Tchaikovsky and the avant garde pieces I put together.  All too often we try to separate things into styles.  We focus on differences, on some kind of idea of 'progress'. We forget too often how art often exists in dialogue with other art - dissolving the boundaries of time with which we try to constrain it. It inspired me to treat these works as kindred spirits, rather than artistic creations separated by epochs.