The musician gets the stage in complete silence and begins to carefully and painstakingly tune his instrument ... It would seem that the cellist and his cello have known each other for a long time. But his “long time” is nothing for the cello. It is seven times older than him and has seen a lot in its time. More precisely, over three centuries as exactly three hundred years ago the great master Domenico Montagnana, the largest representative of the Venice school, created his amazing tools. One of them is on the stage right now. You can see and hear it.

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A writer Sasha Filipenko wanted to tell a story of the old cello in the first person and tried to accomplish it with great love, generous imagination and good humor. What events accompanied the birth of the beautiful instrument, what surrounded it in Italy, what happened to it after leaving the workshop... The audience will learn about all this from actress Tatyana Drubich, who will become the “inner voice” of the cello, its soul and nerve, while its musical voice will sound from the bow of Boris Andrianov. And the appearance of the second cello will bring a separate intrigue into the narrative.

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A native of Minsk, Sasha Filipenko graduated from the Faculty of Liberal Arts at St. Petersburg State University and graduated from the Bard College in New York. He worked as a scriptwriter on the Russian television, and led his own show on the Dozhd TV channel. In 2011, he was awarded a diploma of the first degree of the Belarusian Pen Center. In 2014, the author’s Former Son debut novel was awarded the Russian Prize, the only Russian award for Russian-speaking writers living outside of Russia. Later he published the Zamisly, Travlia and Krasny Krest novels.

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Prior to entering the St. Petersburg University, Sasha Filipenko studied at the I.O. Akhremchik Minsk College of Arts at first as a cellist, then switched to double bass. With honors passed his final exam and was preparing to enter the conservatory, but suddenly decided to abandon his musical career. The writer loves to "create music in literature", in particular, likens the rhythm of the text to the musical rhythm. One of his novels, “Travlia,” was written in sonata form, with deep understanding of specifics of the most complex musical forms, in compliance with all its compositional norms, and also with planned applause. “For many years I tried to develop my own language,” the writer says. “Many of my tricks are likely to come from the scripting experience, and some are from the musical one.”