Russian folk music

Russian folk music
EAST PALESTINE -- Moscow Nights will perform Russian folk music and dance at 7 p.m. Sept. 23 at Centenary United Methodist Church, 40 S. Market St. Vitaliy Bezrodnov, Oleg Kruglyakov and Boris Kipchakov also play ethnic, classical and popular songs while playing Russian accordion, balalaika, folk flute and spoons.
Admission is free; donations will be accepted. Proceeds will go to The Children of Kursh, a program that assists Russian orphans.
Canfield native's play
Today is a good day for Mark Hampton to sleep in, or pop open a bottle of bubbly, now that the musical he's been working on for 20 years has completed its first engagement.
"The Boswell Sisters" -- a collaboration by Hampton, who's a Canfield native, and "Forever Plaid" creator Stuart Ross -- ended its six-week engagement Saturday night at Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.
Hampton, an alumnus of Youngstown Playhouse, introduced Ross to the music of the Boswell Sisters. The "syncopatin' songbirds from New Orleans" were big stars in the 1920s and '30s and influenced younger singers such as Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald and Judy Garland. In 1998, they were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame (with headquarters in Sharon, Pa.)
Hampton and Ross focused on the Boswells' music in a 50-minute cabaret act they wrote in 1979. Their idea blossomed into this musical.
The duo was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times. A Times reviewer called the show "musically sublime."
This wasn't either man's first experience at the Globe. Ross' "Forever Plaid" played there, as did Hampton's "Full Gallop," a solo show about actress Diana Vreeland.