The marriage of the violin with a percussion instrument such as the vibraphone or marimba is an unusual one, but Anastasia Petrunina and Denis Petrunin do what they can to make the union work.
Petrunina and Petrunin, who perform as the ViMaDeAn Duo, shared their story and their music in “For The Beauty of the Earth,” a concert in the gardens of a home in Aiken on Sunday, June 13.
“I was born in Moscow, and Anastasia was born in the Ukraine,” said Petrunin, who is also the principal timpanist with the Augusta Symphony Orchestra and a frequent performer with the Atlanta Symphony, Savannah Philharmonic and Charleston Symphony. “We never met there. We actually met at Yale University.”
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And according to both of them, it was not love at first sight.
“It didn’t go so well,” he said of their first meeting.
The two musicians decided to marry their talents first, but it has been a challenge because composers seldom write works for violin and percussion.
“There are about five duos around the world like us,” said Petrunina, the concert master for the Augusta Symphony. “We have to commission pieces to have good music for an ensemble like us.”
At Sunday’s event, they played some of their own arrangements of other pieces including a marimba solo of “Deborah’s Theme” from “Once Upon a Time in America” as well as a duet of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
The couple also took time to highlight a special project called “Based on Actual Events.”
“The idea was born three or four years ago,” he said. “We heard about the mudslides in California, and the people suffering from them. We felt we needed to come up with a musical response.”
They opened the concert with a piece with the same name as the project. “Based on Actual Events” has three different movements, which bring an alert and call to action and transition to a hope for the future.
Petrunina and Petrunin are in the process of raising money for the next three commissions as well as a recording of the works.
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The Aiken concert was presented by the Aiken Civic Orchestra under the direction of Adam DePriest.
“Anastasia and Denis are phenomenally talented musicians with an international reputation,” DePriest said.
The concert also helped raise funds for his organization which is a semi-professional, community-based orchestra. He conducts a youth orchestra as well.
DePriest has collaborated with multiple musical organizations in the Augusta and Aiken areas and has developed a musical relationship with Petrunina who has conducted master classes for some of his younger musicians.
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Educational outreach is important to the couple who take part in that with the Augusta Symphony as well, according to Petrunin.
Petrunina is also scheduled to play the violin at the Aiken Civic Orchestra’s Aug. 21 concert at the University of South Carolina Aiken’s Etherredge Center. She will perform Max Bruch’s “Violin Concerto No. 1 in G. Minor.”
To learn more about ViMaDeAn Duo, visit @viamean_duo on Instagram.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the Features Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com.
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