Alexander Shonert

Alexander Shonert was born in Siberia in a Jewish family, where he heard Jewish melodies from an early age. After leaving his native region, he encountered the world of Christianity and the richness of Christian traditions. This fascinated and influenced him, and he began to play on the violin the compositions of Orthodox composers Pavel Chesnokov, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Catholic composer Camillo Saint-Saëns, Protestant composer Johann Sebastian Bach and many others. After some time, however, the well-known Jewishness, whose musical representatives were Josef Achron and Ernest Bloch, as well as Jaromír Vogel, a native of Vršov, began to appear in the compositions of these masters.