Sitkovetsky leads us on a tour of the heart of modern Russia in a very special program of transcriptions and arrangements of the music of Stravinsky and Shostakovich. Sitkovetsky's famous arrangement of Bach's Goldberg Variations went to the top of the Classical charts and revealed new beauty and insight into that famous work. Now, in his tribute to his homecoming, "Dima" presents the music of these two great Russian masters in performances that will thrill the casual listener and the collector alike.

Dmitry Sitkovetsky writes: "I founded the New European Strings in 1990, shortly after my return trip to Russia. I returned in December 1988 and happened to be the first Russian post-war emigrée musician who went back to perform there. There was suddenly a possibility to unite my old Russian schoolmates and my new colleagues from the West. So I founded a chamber orchestra and gave it the name New European Strings. It was an exciting time of new connections, new doors opening, of strings not only in terms of musical instruments but also strings as connections between peoples and cultures".