Maksim Velichkin

Fifteen Minutes of Fame: Maksim Velichkin - Homage to Bach II

Maksim Velichkin is an accomplished cellist, pianist, and harpsichordist who has been active as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra artist among an international circle featuring venerable conductors and headlining classical stars. He has worked with James Levine, Kurt Masur, Charles Dutoit, Yuri Temirkanov, Wolfgang Sawallish, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Gabor Takacs-Nagy, Sarah Chang, Maxim Vengerov, Yuri Bashmet, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Bobby Mc Ferrin, Joshua Bell, Martha Argerich, Gabriela Montero, Renaud Capucon, Lynn Harrell, Misha Maisky, Frans Helmerson as well as many others. Maksim’s performances have been featured on Radio Swiss Romande, WQED FM in Pittsburgh, National Radio and Television of Uzbekistan. Moreover, as an improviser and interpreter of contemporary and popular music Maksim’s performance and recording career includes credits with noted musical celebrities Stevie Wonder, Chick Corea, Billy Childs, Burt Bacharach, Bobby McFerrin, Dwight Trible, Bitter:Sweet, Chris Botti, Bob James, Josh Groban, Red Elvises, Bernadette Peters, Natalie Cole, Alan Silvestri, Richard Thompson and many others. He performs and tours frequently with the Verbier Chamber Orchestra throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Maksim Velichkin has also been active as a collaborative pianist having performed numerous recitals with instrumentalists and singers. As a duo pianist, he has performed J.S.Bach's Concerto for Two Pianos in c minor at Carnegie Hall in Pittsburgh, and Saint-Saens's Carnival of the Animals in Sydney, Australia.

Maksim has also collaborated with Los Angeles Sacred Fools theatre on the production of "Claire Z" , the music for which he had created and performed on both cello and piano. As a film composer, Maksim has participated in the creation of the soundtrack for the short film "Through The Air To Calais Or The Wonderful Cruise Of Blanchard's Baloon", the music for which he improvised on the harpsichord and the cello.

Maksim’s recent projects include a recording project for EMI with Maxim Vengerov and Verbier Chamber Orchestra, participation as a harpsichordist at the Bachwoche festival in Berlin, where among other pieces he performed Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #5 with members of Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic, USA tour with the Hutchins Consort, European tour with Martha Argerich and Verbier Chamber Orchestra. He has released 3 albums of his piano improvisations, one of which was recently featured on KPFK’s Global Village show.

Maksim is a member of the Hutchins Consort and the Divan Consort.

Concert Dates

  • September 5th, 2014 - The Brand Library & Art Center in Glendale California

15 one-minute selections for Maksim Velichkin

Concert program

  • Bach Fughetto

    Martha Bishop

    Martha Bishop is a composer, cellist and gamba player in Atlanta, GA. She performs with New Trinity Baroque and is past-Music Director of the Viola da Gamba Society of America. Recent commissions were from the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra and the Viola da Gamba Soceity of America forfor pieces to celebrate Anniversaries.

    “Bach Fughetto” is a three-voiced fugue with entrances using Bb, A, C, B-natural on different scale degrees. After a short development (dictated by the 60 second time limit!), “BACH” recurs in the Coda. Bach is my very favorite composer! Would that my music came anywhere near being as good as his!

  • Jim Dalton

    J. S. Bach

    Jim Dalton is an American composer, performer, and educator who serves on the faculty of The Boston Conservatory. His works are performed in the U.S., Canada, and Europe including in such venues as Musique Nouvelles, Lunel, France and Sound: Scotland’s Festival of New Music.

    J. S. Bach often used mathematical structures such a canons, inversions and retrogrades in his compositions. In Bach Fractal, my homage to his cello suites, I use the B-A-C-H motive in a self-similar structure. The motive controls the overall form and local details as well.

  • Fire and Brimstone

    Bobby DeLisle

    Bobby DeLisle received his Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan in December 2010. He completed his Master's Degree in Music Composition from Wayne State in May 2014, studying with Jon Anderson.

    The title of this piece is derived from an explanation of what is contained within hell, often as a warning to avoid temptation, capturing the mood of this piece. On the musical side of things, I took the traditional “BACH” motive (Bb-A-C-H), and manipulated this tetrachord for the formation of the material.

  • aBACHeosis

    Michelle McQuade Dewhirst

    Michelle McQuade Dewhirst currently teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. There, she teaches courses in music theory, music history, composition, horn and popular music. She has performed twice on 15-Minutes-of-Fame programs and is a founding member of a very small consortium, an ensemble dedicated to the performance of "miniatures”.

    The term "apotheosis" refers to the elevation of someone to divine status. My aBACHeosis, which is constructed almost entirely from the four pitches which spell out Bach's name (B-flat, A, C, B-natural), is intended to be a reverent mediation on Bach's incomparable stature in the realm of Western art music.

  • 1685

    Rolando Gori

    Rolando Gori is a composer living in New York City. Born in Italy, he studied classical piano at the Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and received his BFA in Composition & Theory at Concordia University in Montreal. His music has been performed in conjunction with plays, chamber ensembles and dance companies around the world.

    1685 tries to capture three of my favorite elements of the Baroque age: its angular approach to chromaticism, dance and counterpoint. For the latter I use the cello’s range to create the necessary contrasts and internal lines. The title comes from Bach’s date of birth.

  • Bach Straight and Mixed

    Vera Ivanova

    Composer Vera Ivanova (www.veraivanova.com) is an Associate Professor of Music at Chapman University; she graduated from Moscow Conservatory, Guildhall and Eastman Schools. Ms. Ivanova is a recipient of awards at 8th International Mozart Competition; International Contest of Acousmatic Compositions Métamorphoses 2004; ASCAP Morton Gould Award; 8th International Piano Competition at Orleans.

  • Homage to Bach

    Charles Knox

    Dr. Charles Knox, Professor Emeritus of Music Composition at Georgia State University, has written many compositions for traditional genres to unusual groups (bassoon choir) with a number of his compositions being available on commercial recordings He was the recipient of the 2001 Mayor's Fellowship in the Arts from the City of Atlanta, Georgia.

    The B-A-C-H motive provides an easy shift between G-major and g-minor. Minor and major are mixed throughout. The cello’s range provides two octaves in which the motive may be heard.

  • Improvisation on the theme B-A-C-H for Cello

    Arkady Luxemburg

    Arkady Luxemburg is one of the most prolific and renowned living Moldovan-American composers. He received a MA degree at the Academy of Music in Kishinev, Moldova, where he studied piano performance, composition, and music theory. He worked as an instructor, a concert pianist, and an accompanist. Several of his students became world known performers. Notable symphonic works: "Sinfonietta", Symphony for Strings, Two Concertos for Piano with Orchestra, Concerto for Cello with Orchestra, Piano works: "Aquarelie", "In Memory of Shostakovitch", "In Memory of Gershwin", Sonata, Sonatina, "Bluses", "Preludes". Since 1995, he has resided in San Diego, California where he continued his career as a Performer, Composer and Instructor.

    Improvisation for Cello solo written specially for Maxim Velichkin. It's based on he B-A-C-H theme of Bach.

  • BACH Frame

    David Meckler

    DC Meckler teaches a variety of music courses at a community college in the San Francisco Bay Area. Excerpts from his Apollo 14, A Space Opera, were performed at the Palm Springs Air Museum in 2013.

    Notes without BACH are heard, and then BACH fills in the gaps (the rests) in each measure. The time signature is 14/8, because B+A+C+H!

  • Ebb and Flow

    Vasilis Mouskouris

    Born in Athens, Greece. Guitarist, Composer, Music Teacher. Works: Solo, ensemble, choral pieces, a symphonic work, music for theatre and advertisements. First Prize for the Promenade for Strings, performed in Kythera, 2013. A number of works have been premiered. Cyclothymia for guitar was included in a Greek Composers’ Collection.

    Continuous undulating strands of tones, audible in the wavy shape of the melodic contour, together with their swelling and diminishing, tend to resemble massive waves in a low and high water interchange. Unifying tonal element of the swift-moving wavering harmonies is the pivotal four-note motif Bb-A-C-B around which everything rotates.

  • What's in a name?

    Hinse Mutter

    Hinse studied classical double bass at the Rotterdam University of the Arts, and is active as a double bass player in many dutch orchestras. He has written songs, chamber music and orchestral pieces, and his arrangements of Mahler and Bach have been broadcasted on national dutch radio.

    a What's in a name? was written using only material derived from the intervals stemming from B-A-C-H and the letters of Maksim Velichkin's name. In the music the names weave a passionate and changeful monologue, growling and soaring across the instrument before dying away softly, coming to rest upon Bach's name.

  • "BACH" Cello Suite No. 2

    Nathan Nau

    Born June 2, 1995, Nathan Nau is a current composition student at Fresno State. He developed a strong passion for music at a very young age and has engaged himself to further his compositional and performance capabilities through his education at Fresno State.

    Rhythmically driving and sinister, the piece has two opposing forces: one of tonality (as one would expect in a piece by Bach) and one of chromaticism (as represented by the Bb, A, C, B emphasis). The piece is a quasi ternary form (A, B, B') where B is the climax and A' is resolved in tonality.

  • 'In the Name of BACH' for Solo Cello

    Akmal Parwez

    While studying electronics in Tokyo on a Japanese Government scholarship, composer-vocalist Akmal Parwez studied composition with Yasushi Akutagawa and Klaus Pringsheim. After completing his university studies (B.E., M.E.), he felt compelled to devote his life to composing, singing and teaching music. In the U.S. he studied composition with Florence Jolley, Leo Kraft, Samuel Adler(M.A., Queens College; Ph.D., Eastman School of Music).

    'In the Name of BACH' is based on various short motifs derived from the 4 pitches: BACH - namely, Bb-A-C-B - in the surname of J.S. Bach. In addition, the word 'Bach' means 'Stream' in German and I have tried to evoke feelings of a rippling mountain stream in the piece. The work is written for and dedicated to Maksim Velichkin.

  • A musing on BACH

    Phil Taylor

    A composer in many genres; Phil Taylor’s electronic ambient works are released on iTunes under the Secret Perdu label, recent compositions have been performed by Dr Liana Valente, Livas Clarinet Quartet, Walking Wiltshire White Horses Project, Artdesamis Piano Trio, H2 Saxophone Quartet, The LivingVoid Project, CoMA Leeds, Courtney Sherman.

    A musing, a reverie based on and only including the pitches BACH.

  • Three voices B-A-C-H

    Fabio Monzù Rosselli

    Fabio Monzù Rosselli lives in Rome where he graduated from the local music conservatory with degree in composition and choral direction. He was first active as a pianist part of chamber ensembles and then as a composer affected by jazz contaminations and electronic music. Now he works for theater, video and installation.

    Three voices B-A-C-H It’s a close dialogue that alternate passion, mysterious and ironic attitude. The alto voice plays B-A-C-H twice, as a scenario where the other voices offer their own game. Harmony go far and come back till the three voices pay tribute to the theme playing two bars stretto counterpoint before ending.