Vera Lautard-Schewtschenko - a pianist in the Gulag

The event honors French pianist Véronique Lautard-Shevchenko (1901–1982), a student of Alfred Cortot, who was arrested by the NKVD in 1941 and endured years in a Siberian Gulag camp, losing her husband and child. Without access to a piano, she carved keys into a wooden board and silently "played" her favorite composers — Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and Debussy. After her rehabilitation, she worked as a pianist in Novosibirsk until her death.

Writer Michail Schischkin and pianist Alexey Botvinov present a literary-musical tribute to her life and resilience of spirit.

Michail Schischkin (reading, conversation)
Alexey Botvinov (piano)

Program: pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach