Cellist delivers dramatic performance

Musician plays baroque music during his return to the free concert series

Kashish Nizami/Roundup knizami.roundupnews@gmail.com

With just two spotlights creating shadows by dancing off Ruslan Biryukov’s swift arms, the cellist performed a dramatic concert in Pierce College’s Music Building room 3400 to an overflowing room of students on Oct. 18.

The cellist plays solo, as well as in quartets, and plays for the Glendale Philharmonic Orchestra, according to his website. He regularly teaches students in his free time.

“One of my students returned her cello to the store after something was wrong with it,” Biryukov recalled. “I went back to that store and said, ‘I want to have first priority on this cello!’ And I’ve had this ever since.”

Biryukov played the works of George Frideric Handel, Johan Sebastian Bach and Gaspar Cassado in an effort to teach the students about the Baroque Era for various students from classes in the Music department, as well as for students not taking classes in the department.

“I think [Cassado] is important for me as a cellist because he was one himself, and he wrote this music,” Biryukov commented in between pieces of music. “Bach didn’t play the cello.”

As his performance continued, the cellist joked with his audience, making students chuckle as he taught and answered questions concerning the history behind his choices of musical pieces.

“Can anybody describe the garden that this piece might be talking about?” he asked before receiving silence in response.

“Oh, so nobody has read the Bible?”

Biryukov explained after the concert that while he had tried his hand at other instruments, he could never have seen himself playing anything other than his cello and that he loved the one he currently plays with.

“My mother wanted me to play the piano, since she played,” he stated while smiling. “God, I hated playing the piano!”

With an ending as colorful, if not more, as his performance, Biryukov finished his performance with eyes closed, sweating, and head bowing over his instrument—as if his cello and he were one under the dim lighting.

More information on Biryukov can be found at www.celloart.com.

Pierce College regularly has free concerts on Thursdays at 12:45 p.m. in the Music Building Room 3400. More information about the performances can be found under the Music department off of the Pierce College website.