Joseph Boulogne

Over the course of time there have been many overlooked artists in classical music, because of their race and/or gender. It is important to acknowledge that we have not yet heard the whole story due to this sidelining of voices. Composers Joseph Boulogne Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, William Grant Still, Florence B. Price, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, and George Walker, have all contributed beautifully crafted works to the repertoire, but are not widely celebrated. Another contributing factor to this unfortunate reality is access to their manuscripts and recordings of their work which we believe would lead to greater awareness and programming of their incredible music.

One of the more flamboyant characters in Paris in the latter half of the 19th century, Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de St. George (1739?-1799) was known as a championship fencer and a brilliant violinist. It is not a surprise then that his violin concertos exhibit a swaggering solo part. What you won't find is much motivic development. What you will discover are gorgeous melodies, lots of them. Although they populate all his work, they especially saturate his lyrical middle movements, one of which appears to be the basis for the haunting oboe theme from the popular BBC series, "Foyle's War".

A descendent of the great literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, grandson of the famous classical pianist Valia Belinsky and the gypsy violinist Stephan Brotescou, Frederic Belinsky was born on August 25th, 1974. He began to study guitar at the age of 9 in the Russian Conservatory of Paris, then that of Boulogne, and graduated with a silver prize in 1997 from the National Conservatory of Paris. During his 15 years of classical guitar, he has not limited himself to this style of music, but also turns to jazz under the influence of the greatest jazz musicians including Django Reinhardt, Barney Kessel, Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow. But his music preferences are not limited by the style of Django Reinhardt. Frederic, captivated by the musicality and infinite possibilities of improvisation, also interprets American standards, and his own variations of Russian Songs creating a new musical style - the Swing Slave.