Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
Vadim Astrakhan brings Vysotsky back to Russkiy Mir
On January 28, 2012 the
"Russkiy Mir" Center in Washington ,
DC celebrated Vladimir Vysotsky's
birthday by hosting a spectacular performance by Vadim Astrakhan. This young
Russian-American singer presented over a dozen of his original translations of
Vladimir Vysotsky songs and poems to an audience of Russophiles and
Vysotsky-fans. His translations and performance represented a spicy combination
that demonstrated a sincere respect for the literary and musical authenticity
of Vysotsky’s texts, while at the same time, lending a very modern (almost
rocky!) overtone to the performance. Vadim believes that the extremely
contextual lyrics by the prominent Russian bard demand the equally deep
knowledge of the “other” culture from anyone who dares to
translate Vysotsky. In this sense, Mr. Astrakhan himself is obviously an
appropriate “stalker” between the two realms, as he had grown up with equal
exposure to both Russian and American cultures.
Vadim’s performance ended with a vibrant
question-and-answer session, and was effectively concluded with a recitation of
his newly translated Vysotsky poem («И снизу лёд, и сверху...»), which is one of the
poet’s most programmatic and challenging masterpieces.
See the photo-album of this performance HERE.
Watch the video clip with Vadim's interpretation of Vysotsky's "Спасите наши души".
Watch the video clip with Vadim's interpretation of Vysotsky's "Спасите наши души".
And a final piece of good news…
Upon setting-off for his next trip to California ,
Vadim made a generous donation to our Workshop by adding several copies of his
recently released CD to our awards-fund! Hooray! Now we can acknowledge several
more participants of the Workshop in even more categories!
Finally, Vadim Astrakhan has kindly
shared his advice for beginning Vysotsky translators; you may read it on our
new blog page «Стана советов». We
are confident that you will find it very helpful!
(The next post by another
experienced Vysotsky translator is soon to come. Keep an eye on our
postings!)
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