ASTREJA

Astreja is a rare, almost unique example of a group of composers – famous in their own right - impovising together, creating music that none of them could write (produce) by him – or herself. Astreja – a group consisting of the leading composers of academic avantgarde from the then Soviet Union improvising with rarely used Russian, Caucasian and Central-Asian folk instruments. - was founded in 1975 by Vyacheslav Artiomov, Sofia Gubaidulina and Victor Suslin.  This is the original round-up. Later Mark Pekarsky and Valentina Ponomareva briefly joined the group while V.Artyomov went on to pursue other projects.