Oleg Timofeyev   Tue, 11 Jan 2000 00:16:15 -0500 (EST)
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Hi whoever is interested:

I will turn 37 this Wednsday, and I consider myself a professional lutenist.
That is, I don't play for free and would work on a piece only if it's
going to be either on a CD or in concert.  Until 1989 I lived in Moscow,
Russia, and really had wonderful time.  Whatever anti-communists tell
you, don't trust them:  nobody around me was so depressingly dependant on
the humble issues of $$$, people survived somehow, and movies were not
about sex and violence.  My grandmother was a excellent amateur pianist,
my mom is a prof. cellist.  So music was in the house for as far back as
I can remember.  But I think this was exactly the reason why my folks
tried to keep me away from it.  I was in an art school, then math school,
then rather seriously into martial arts and poetry, but Music was
waiting.  At the age of 15 I picked up the guitar by myself and, although
it was handy to have my grandmother as a source of trivial information
(e.g., what is a flat?), I learned to play Vill-Lobos preludes all by
myself.  Then, at the age 18 I started serous guitar lessons with an
absolutely excellent teacher whose influence is still with me.  His ideas
were about how any musical performance is based on a sequence of physical 
sensations, and how to learn a peace by just getting into such a sequence
in a 1)logical; 2)comfortable; and 3) pleasant way.

Then I had a Guitarist's Crisis:  many suddenly realize that either they
play transcriptions and nothing but, OR they will have to be satisfied w/
only Spanish and Latin-American music.  For me at the time it was like
eating only sugar, so I got into a habit of buying any musical edition
that had the word "lute" on the cover.  (Others decide to study jazz or
compose their own stuff, right?)  The music was available only from DDR,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, and --surprise--Russia. Oh yes, also Hungary. My
collection of sheet music was rather substantial then, only very few
pieces were in tablature.  But I learned to read French and Italian tab
long before I found my first lute, on a guitar with a capo.  At some
point my own private world built around early music came into being:  I
played rather fluently recorder, viola da gamba, and lute;  my mom
learned viola da gamba and even lyra viol, so we played duets in concerts
and once on Radio Moscow; with semi-playable instruments we had a broken
consort, a viol consort, a consort of recorders.  A lot of people liked
to visit our rehearsals, and we drank tea for hours afterwords.

I can't think of all that w/o tears.  In 1989 I met an American
musicologist who kindly invited me to come to Iowa.  I had no idea where
this place is -- after checking the map I was comforted:  right in the
middle, just like Moscow.  Well, little did I know...   I was supposed to
direct the University Collegium:  when the first chord sounded, I almost
fainted.  There was no hope.  The core presonell were the typical
recorder-players who, at rather mature age, choose to play recorder as
the stupidest and easiest instrument.  This can't work.

Anyway, I couldn't believe how little early music was a part of people's
life.  The library was good though, and I did study on my own.  Then I
met my wife-to-be, and we got married in 1990.  My wife is German, and
two our children are expected to be tri-lingual.  Of course, our 5.5 yr
old daughter tries to push English on us, but we resist.  The boy is too
young for this decision...

I studied lute with Pat O'Brien when I spent two months in NYC prior to
my marriage.  I had no money so Pat taught me for free, while Roman
Turovsky gave me free room and board.  This world is really stuffed with
kind people.  Pat's approach to lute completely changed the way I play.
When I went to study with James Tyler at USC (1992-3), I learned
something important form him too:  how to be humble and to make things
simple. In 1992 I also had a short chance to study w/ Hoppy Smith in a
deligthful village in the south of France.  Although I never got a chance to
play more than an open string, this 2-weeks-long course brought me a sort
of epiphany:  I never thought that SOUND by itself is of such huge
imprtance.

After earning an MA degree in Early Music Performance, I went
out to Duke for a PhD in Performance Practice -- which I finsihed in
Spring 1999.  Now I am teaching at the U of Iowa Russian department
(Visiting Assistant Prof.), looking for jobs elsewhere.

I have two CDs out:  "The Wandering Lutenist" on Centaur, and "The Golden
Age of the Russian Guitar" on Dorian.  I love lute and lute music and
have several dream projects on this instrument.  But for the time being I
am committed to the Rus. guitar, since I the first person to do it from
the HIP perspective.  My second disc of this music will come out this
spring and will be called (most likely) "The Golden
Age of the Russian Guitar, Vol. II."

That's about it, if you have any questions concerning Russian food or 
something like that, feel free to ask.

Ciao for now,
Oleg