Songwriter Explores His Russian Roots, and Russians Root for Him

How did Los Angeles musician Peter Rubissow spend his summer vacation? Touring in the former Soviet Union.

As part of a two-week solo tour, he was a featured performer in the annual Vitebsk Festival in Belarus and had concert engagements in Ukraine and Russia in addition to several radio and television appearances.

An American of Russian-Canadian descent, Rubissow toured the Commonwealth of Independent States to share his music and explore his family roots. A guitar-playing singer and songwriter, he is the son of a classical pianist and grandson of classical Russian composer George Rubissow, who escaped during the Russian Revolution.

“I was greeted with unbridled enthusiasm and roll-out-the carpet hospitality everywhere I played,” he said. “There’s a very dramatic, romantic tone that seems to permeate the Russian way of life, and people there really identified with that same quality in my music.”

Rubissow’s tour came together as the result of an unusual series of events.

Last year, Rubissow’s father made a trip to the former Soviet Union in an attempt to get George Rubissow’s classical music released. Coincidentally, he met the programming director for the national radio station Radio Mayak and shared a demonstration tape of the music performed by his son.

The programming director was so taken with Rubissow’s song “World of Love” that he arranged for it to be broadcast on the air, and the song became an instant hit. Shortly afterward, he signed a deal with Polygram Records’ Russian affiliate LAD Records, and plans for the summer tour began.

“I was thrilled,” he said, although “it was a little scary.”

Rubissow, 31, began playing the violin at an early age. As a teen-ager, he gave up the violin in favor of the guitar and discovered that it was easy for him to pick up songs and play them back by ear.

“The guitar offered everything that the violin didn’t,” he said.

Rubissow spent two years at Boston’s Berklee College of Music but found that his heart wasn’t in his work, so he dropped out to move to New York City. While performing on the streets of Manhattan and working odd jobs, he started to explore song-writing. In 1986, he came to Los Angeles and played guitar in a local band for three years. “But it was other people’s music,” he said. “I wanted to do my own thing.”

Rubissow began taking voice lessons and writing his own material. He got a few gigs as a soloist and played the local club scene. After building up confidence, he was able to play bigger places around town and attract an audience.

And now that he has made a splash in the Russian music scene, Rubissow plans to continue performing locally and also work on the release of a music video for his song “Hypnotized,” due out this fall.

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The Medallion Group of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center presented its Heart of Gold award to Frieda Meltzer.

Meltzer, a longtime supporter of the medical center, was honored at the 26th Annual Medallion Ball held Saturday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

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Steven Copes was the winner of the 1992 Carl Flesch International Violin Competition held recently in London.

During the competition, he performed Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the London Philharmonic, and as a soloist, the Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 with the Bournemouth Sinfonetta. Copes, a graduate of Crossroads School for the Arts in Santa Monica, is a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pa.

*Dr. Michael Steinberg of Santa Monica has been named a fellow of the American College of Radiology.

Steinberg, selected for his contributions to the field of radiology, was one of 144 new fellows selected at the group’s annual meeting last month in Phoenix, Ariz.

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Maria Arechaederra was honored at the First Annual Celebration of Gerontology Awards sponsored by the Jewish Home for the Aging. Arechaederra, executive director of Wise Senior Services in Santa Monica, was recognized for her work to make direct services available to senior citizens. She received the award at a dinner Sept. 24 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

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