The festival opens with an exploration of Beethoven-era repertoire for flute and guitar featuring antique Russian and English instruments and repertoire by prominent flutists and guitarists from Russia, France, Germany and Italy. Oleg Timofeyev will play a Russian 7-string guitar made in Russia in 1815 and Jeffrey Cohan will play an 8-keyed flute made in London in 1820.

The program will include music composed collaboratively by guitarist Louis Ange Carpentras (1786-1852) and flutist Antoine Tranquille Berbiguier (1782-1835), along with works by guitarist Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829), flutist Theodor Gaude (1782-1846), and one of the first modern-day performances of a sonata for flute and Russian 7-string guitar by Czech guitarist Ignaz von Held (1764-1816), which can be heard in an online performance by Timofeyev and Cohan here.

Timofeyev, originally from Moscow, and Cohan have performed together in Kiev and in six cities in the north, south, east and west of Ukraine, where conflict currently rages. Both have ancestors who lived in Ukraine. For two years Timoveyev lived with his family and did research in Kiev, funded by a Fulbright fellowship. This concert is dedicated to the love of the Ukrainian national spirit and the love for their country that unites all Ukrainians, as witnessed by Timofeyev and Cohan and as is so evident today.

- Oleg Timofeyev’s notes on the Sonata for Flute and Seven-String Guitar by Ignaz von Held:
       In terms of his military and private adventures, Ignaz von Held (aka Ignacio de Held) would make an excellent protagonist for a historical novel. Born in Hohenbruck (now Třebechovice pod Orebem, today’s Czech Republic) into a doctor's family, Ignaz was able to receive excellent education in the humanities, with a strong emphasis on music. Following the early death of his father, Ignaz moved to Poland in 1781 to pursue a military career. His next destination was St. Petersburg where, due to his many talents and elegant manners, he received the patronage of Prince Grigory Potemkin. Held’s military achievements included participation in the 1787-1791 Crimean War against Turkey. After his benefactor Potemkin died in 1791, Held returned to Poland where he was promoted to the rank of major and acquired the status of nobility. But soon he got involved in Tadeusz Kościuszko’s 1794 uprising against the Russian rule. Upon the ultimate failure of the revolt, von Held was moved back to Russia to serve a sentence as a prisoner of war. Fortunately for him, Catherine the Great soon died in 1796. Paul I disagreed with his mother on a number of issues and as soon as his monarchy began in 1797, he liberated most of the Polish fighters.
       So, von Held found himself in Moscow, with no military future, and no money.  The time was right to remember about his musical talents, and he published his 1798 Guitar Method, which is the key event in the history of the Russian seven-string guitar.  Not only was it the historically first publication for the new instrument, but the words on the cover strongly suggested that the Russian guitar was conceived as a hybrid instrument owing its origin to both gut-strung, figure-eight-shaped Spanish and metal-strung, pear-shaped English guitars.  The Sonata for Flute and Seven-String Guitar included in Held's Method is the earliest known sonata to involve the Russian guitar.