Troika: Russia’s westerly poetry in three orchestral song cycles is a 2011 album of contemporary classical songs performed by soprano Julia Kogan, who also conceived the project. [1] She is accompanied by The St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic conducted by Jeffery Meyer. The songs are set to Russian, English, and French language poetry by five classic Russian writers: Joseph Brodsky, Mikhail Lermontov, Vladimir Nabokov, Aleksandr Pushkin and Fyodor Tyutchev. Eight modern composers, from France, Russia, and the United States, wrote music for the album: Isabelle Aboulker, Ivan Barbotin, Eskender Bekmambetov, Jay Greenberg, James DeMars, Andrey Rubtsov, Michael Schelle and Lev Zhurbin. The three song cycles on the album are “there…”, set to Russian poems and their English auto-translations by Joseph Brodsky; “Sing, Poetry”, set to Russian poems and their English auto-translations by Vladimir Nabokov; and “Caprice étrange”, set to French poems by Mikhail Lermontov, Aleksandr Pushkin and Fyodor Tyutchev. The common point of the three song cycles is that they are based upon poetry that reflects its authors’ active linguistic integration into Western culture. Julia Kogan is an award-winning Russian-American-French coloratura soprano. She is also the creator of contemporary musical projects fusing music, literature, dance, theater and film. The St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic was founded in 2002 to create and encourage cultural exchange between the United States and Russia. The orchestra has since become one of St. Petersburg’s most exciting and innovative chamber orchestras. Since its inception, the St. PCP has performed in the major concert halls of the city and has been presented in its most important festivals including the International Musical Olympus Festival, International New Music Festival “Sound Ways”, International Festival St. Petersburg “Musical Spring”, 5th Annual Festival “Japanese Spring in St. Petersburg”, and “Avant-garde in our Days” Music Festival. Led by Artistic Director Jeffery Meyer, the St. PCP's 2010 performances at Symphony Space in NYC were called "Impressive," "powerful," "blazing," "polished" by the New York Times. The orchestra’s dynamic performances and progressive programming has distinguished it among the many orchestras of the city. The St. PCP has performed over 150 works, including over a dozen world premieres, introduced St. Petersburg audiences to more than 30 young performers, conductors and composers from 15 different countries (such up-and-coming stars as Alisa Weilerstein, cello), and performed works by nearly 40 living American and Russian composers, including Russian premieres of works by Pulitzer Prize-winning American composers Steve Reich, Steven Stucky, and John Adams as well as new works by St. Petersburg's most distinguished composers Sergei Slonimsky, Leonid Rezetdinov, Alexander Radvilovich, Anatoly Koroliov and Boris Tischenko.