Rachmaninov and Friends: Olena Tokar (soprano) and Igor Gryshyn (piano)

Rachmaninov’s life and career crossed over the 19th and 20th centuries, and took him from Europe to the US. In this series we hear his music alongside works by his friends and contemporaries.

Soprano Olena Tokar and pianist Igor Gryshyn explore the songs of Rachmaninov and his contemporaries: music as intimate as it is ardent.

‘Spellbinding’ was how one critic recently described the Ukrainian soprano Olena Tokar; another praised the ‘sensuous, translucent fragility’ of her singing. In other words, she’s a near-ideal interpreter of the songs of Sergei Rachmaninoff and his Russian contemporaries, and today, with regular collaborator Igor Gryshyn, she performs a personal selection: miniature dramas of yearning, tenderness and delight, charged with all of Rachmaninov’s unrivalled gift for atmosphere and melody.