Oleg Ponomarev 

 

Oleg is a performing musician and multi-instrumentalist, teacher, lecturer and composer. He first studied violin and piano with his grandparents, both graduates of the Moscow Conservatory, and later graduated from the Central Music School and Gnesinn College in Moscow. He co-founded and performed extensively with legendary Russian-Gypsy trio Loyko and world music trio Koshka and has collaborated with numerous international artists, including Ravi Shankar, Yehudi Menuhin, Lakshminarayana Sumbramaniam, Ally Bain, Gidon Kremer, Gilles Apap, Andre Heller, Bill Lovelady and Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones. He has also written or arranged several scores for film and video, including Onegin (featuring Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler), and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Tim Burton. As a teacher, Oleg has taught classical, jazz/swing and Gypsy violin for over 30 years, and he has given workshops and masterclasses in schools and universities worldwide, including the Sonic Arts Research Centre in Belfast; the University of Aalborg in Copenhagen, Denmark; the University of Gothenburg in Sweden; Temple Sinai in Marblehead, Massachusetts; the Schous Cultural Centre in Trondheim, Norway; and the Russian Cultural Centre in Glasgow, Scotland. He has recorded and produced more than thirty albums under his own name or as a guest artist and is signed to ARC Records UK, Circular Records Scotland and Adastra UK. Currently Oleg is a permanent member of the following groups: Koshka, Yurodny, Hot Club of Dublin, NoCrows and LPG Trio. He has taught at the New School since 2015.