Gala concert of the winners of the International Contest of Ensembles “National Collection” that was held in St. Petersburgh in autumn 2018. 

“National Collection” started as a competition of composers of ethno music, but in 2018 the contest of ensembles was also introduced. The main term is that a band participant has at least one folk instrument. 

Last year, the jury was headed by domra player and “Grammy” awardee Alexander Tsygankov. He believes that the main goal of “National Collection” is “to showcase the whole spectrum of contemporary ethno music, and to help talented musicians find their way to the audience”.
The laureats of the First, Second, and Third prizes perform this night: Russaxquartet, “Quintet Chetyryoh” (“Quintet of Four”), and SUBTILU-Z.

Russaxquartet is a band of four virtuosi, Gnessin Academy graduates, pupils of legendary Margarita Shaposhnikova. The band is a laureate of TV project “Quartet 4x4”. It tours Russia, Italy, Germany, Azerbaijan, and Belorussia. The repertoire of the ensemble embraces styles as diverse as baroque and jazz.

“Quintet of Four” is really a quartet of bayan, balalaika, bass-domra, and contrabass-balalaika. All the musicians are St. Petersburg conservatory graduates, and their explanation of the oxymoronic band’s name is as follows: there are for musicians, right, but there’s the fifth participant – audience. “Quintet of Four” works with progressive trends of world music, and add vocal, rap, throat singing, percussion, and horns to their music.

Subtilu-Z was founded in 2005 by Lithuania academy of music and theatre graduates Dmitry Mikhaylova and Povilas Velikis. When percussionist Vytautas Švažas and birbine player Laurynas Vaitkus joined, the quartet was born. The ensemble plays classical and pop music at festivals in their native Lithuania and abroad. The philosophy of Subtilu-Z is to turn each and every concert into something “subtly playful, subtly serious, subtly musical, and just interesting”.