Russian Soulscapes, the sequel recording to and Homage to Fiddlers, celebrates a decade of collaboration between Ivan Sokolov and Karen Bentley Pollick.


We first met as guest artists during the Seattle Chamber Players Icebreaker II: Baltic Voices Festival in February 2004 and have since presented recitals in Seattle, New York City, Birmingham, Baton Rouge, Denver, San Francisco, the Czech Republic, and at the American Academy of Rome, where we premiered duos composed by Dorothy Hindman and Charles Norman Mason during his 2005 Samuel Barber Rome Prize Fellowship.


In September 2007 cellist Dennis Parker joined us in Birmingham for the very first all-Sokolov concert comprised of the Violin and Viola Sonatas featured on and the Cello Sonata and Piano Trio recorded on Homage to Fiddlers. On January 30, 2008, while en route to the airport to return to Moscow after recording the Cello Sonata and Piano Trio in Seattle, Sokolov hummed the opening six bar theme for his emerging Piano Qu