Terem Quartet

Terem-Quartet
Terem-Quartet. From left to right: Alexey Barshev, Andrey Smirnov and Mikhail Dzudze, Andrey Konstantinov.
Background information
Origin	Saint Petersburg, Russia
Genres	Classical crossover
Years active	1986–present
Website	http://www.terem-quartet.ru/
Members	Andrey Konstantinov Andrey Smirnov Mikhail Dzudze Alexey Barshev
Past members	Igor Ponomarenko

Terem-Quartet (Russian: Терем Квартет) is a musical ensemble from Saint Petersburg, Russia. The ensemble playing in the genre of Crossover was created in 1986. Since that time, Terem-Quartet has released 17 CDs, and its repertoire includes more than 500 musical compositions of classical and modern music.

Terem-Quartet has performed more than 2,500 concerts in more than 60 countries. The ensemble is regarded as a symbol of Saint Petersburg because it has represented its native city in many cultural events all over the world.

The recent line-up includes: Andrey Konstantinov (soprano domra), Andrey Smirnov (bayan-accordion), Mikhail Dzudze (double bass balalaika) and Alexey Barshev (alto domra)

The ensemble was created in 1986 as a project of four Saint Petersburg Conservatory students: Andrey Konstantinov (soprano domra), Andrey Smirnov (bayan-accordion), Mikhail Dzudze (double bass balalaika) and Igor Ponomarenko (alto domra). At one time the students were called up for military service. After the first year of this service they were transferred to the local army ensemble which consisted of orchestra, choir and ballet. Some time later an idea to create a new ensemble was born and this one was called "Russian Souvenir". At this time it consisted of a big number of participants and many of them were not able to read musical notes that it why musicians tried to find a special language: they picked out some well-known music pieces and combined them with folk melodies. Then the first line-up of Terem-Quartet was formed: Andrey Konstantinov, Andrey Smirnov, Mikhail Dzudze and Igor Ponomarenko.

At this time we promised each other that just the ensemble will be the main thing for all of us. We have already understood that we are interesting only when we are together. Our "Terem" is not just a beautiful building. There are no chiefs for us, everyone does his bit and it forms what we are building. In our music we unite different genres under one roof. Terem is open for guests, we are always glad to see them (Andrey Konstantinov)

The first concert took place on 26 November 1986 on the stage of music teachers training college. According to Andrey Konstantinov, at the end of the performance the audience stood up and musicians understood that their choice was right. Since that time, November 26 is considered to be the birthday of the ensemble.

In 1988 Terem-Quartet was invited to take part in "White Nights" festival in Hamburg. Here musicians performed with Mariinsky Theatre soloist Vladimir Chernov, ballerina Lubov Kunakova and pianist Pavel Egorov. Also in that year director Igor Vladimirov proposed to write music for performance "Love till Death" (Lubov do Groba).