Sasha Levtov

So that's him – Alexander Levtov – aged six or seven – holding a stringed instrument that failed spectacularly to become his life's calling – but which skipped a generation and became his daughter's …

Ladies and Gentlemen – Dear Friends – on behalf of my mother Nina, my brothers Ilya and Yuli and my sister Inna, I would like to extend to you All the warmest possible welcome to this – a Celebration of the Life of Sasha Levtov.

For those of you who don't know me – I am Joe – Sasha's eldest son – and it falls to me to stand here before you today – and try – with some words – and perhaps a few images – to say something about a man whom many of you have known for a long time…

…

Someone whom I respect a great deal told me many years ago that nothing in life ever prepares you for the loss of a parent. I can add – unequivocally – that nothing in life ever prepares a son for the job of writing and reading his father's Eulogy.

Without a shadow of a doubt, my job has been made easier because of the many messages which our family has received in the last few weeks. It has been a heartwarming experience to read so much from so many of you who – in your own way – knew him so well. Your messages have been full of warmth, joyful memories, recollections of formative experiences and reminiscences of some of the many crazy things Sasha did. There has – above all else – been an outpouring of so much positivity. He would be exceptionally touched by how you are now remembering him. And it was when I started to read these messages that I realised that today would indeed be A Celebration. For there is an awful lot for us to celebrate about an Extraordinary Man who lived an Extraordinary Life.

I would like to give voice to some of my own thoughts and feelings, but I also feel a duty to try to communicate to you at least a little of what I believe he would have wanted to say to you himself. Representing him in this way is something that I grew up with – because my own expedited need to learn English resulted in my becoming the Family Spokesman and Official Family Interpreter – as we – as a family – took our first tentative steps to learning a new language and building our new life in Bognor Regis all those years ago…

It is perhaps fitting that just shy of 46 years later, I reprise that role today, and stand before you – to be his Spokesman – one last time.

And what is it that he would want me to say to you? More than anything else, I believe he would want me to say just Two Words. He would want me say to you the same two words that he was teaching me to pronounce as our plane was landing at Heathrow airport on 3 January 1980. My very own first two words of English – and clearly the two words he felt were the most important to know how to say – and mean – in what was about to become our adopted home.

And the words he would want me to say – with as much sincerity as I could muster – are – "Thank You".

He would want me to thank each and every one of you for everything that you have done to make what he did over all these years possible. He was only ever one part of a much bigger whole, and he could never have achieved what he did without the other part – you. What he was able to do would have been impossible without your friendship, your encouragement and your support. Deep down – I think he had always known that.

He would want me to thank you, unconditionally, for welcoming him – and by extension us, his family – into your community all those years ago. For taking us in, accepting us, and giving us a home. Perhaps the single most meaningful gesture one human being can extend to another. That is the only thing a refugee ever really seeks – to find a place where he feels safe. A place where he feels he can belong. A place where he believes he will be accepted for who and what he is – and for what he wants to become. That is precisely why Sasha would want me to thank you today. Because that is precisely what you did for him. You made him – and his family – feel that we were safe, that we could belong, and that we could be accepted. I would like to think that he spent the rest of his life trying to pay you all back.

I wanted very much to find for you one single image which could somehow bring together all the disparate parts of Sasha and encapsulate for you everything I hold dear about him.

But that seemed like the hardest thing for me to do – to find this unifying image that could explain the man. And I couldn't do it. For weeks. And then – suddenly – out of nowhere, I understood exactly what that image was. I realised that the one small item that perhaps summed up Sasha better than any other was something that I saw only once in my life, 46 years ago, and I promise you that I had never, ever, thought about it since…. Until now.

I need to take you back to the last days of October in 1979. On the very eve of our departure from Russia – destination Vienna – my grandparents – Sasha's parents – hosted a small gathering of Sasha and Nina's closest friends in the kitchen of my grandparent's apartment in Leningrad. I was exiled to a small bedroom at the other end of the apartment – furthest from the kitchen – and instructed to get some sleep. This room belonged to Marina – Sasha's only sister – my aunt. Marina was an artist and a sculptor, and every shelf was bursting with drawings, sketches and sculptures. I remember absolutely nothing about any piece of art in that room that night – with the exception of just one small sculpture. And I couldn't take my eyes off it.

I had never seen that sculpture before. And I never saw it again…

It was quite small – the size of a Rubik's Cube – and it had been moulded from dark brown plasticine. And whilst its four sides were smooth and flat, the top of the cube had a multitude of evenly-spaced dome-shaped bumps. With crystal clarity, I remember staring intently at this small sculpture and understanding that those dome-shaped bumps were supposed to be people. That those dome-shaped bumps were their arched backs. Because those people were bent over almost double. Because they were all hiding. Because they were all afraid. They were all – quite literally – keeping their heads down…

That complete symmetry and uniformity was violently punctuated by a solitary arm – that was extended, vertically… like this… and at the top of the arm was a clenched fist…

I didn't know it then. I know it now. That was him…

That was Sasha's outstretched arm and that was my father's clenched fist. What Marina had sculpted out of dark brown plasticine was her elder brother's existential disagreement with that regime and what it had reduced its citizens to – and – simultaneously – his determination to break free of it and escape it. A very visual rendition of what had by then become his sole motivation – the unshakeable belief that he was not going to live out his life demeaned, subjugated and repressed, and that he was not going to allow that to happen to his wife and children either. That fist told you that he was going to move heaven and earth to win something better and brighter for him and his family and give them hope beyond the borders of a country that he believed had none left.

In that moment, in that dark bedroom, the defiant and dangerously revolutionary meaning of that small sculpture was hopelessly lost on a six-year old. But thinking about it now – I understand all too clearly its overtly political symbolism and I understand how vividly it could have been a representation of Sasha's will-power. And how incredibly profound – that the only time I ever laid eyes on that sculpture – never to see it again – was on the very last day and in the very final hours before we emigrated. That small sculpture was telling me what it all meant. And what it was costing him.

I wish I had a photograph of Marina's small sculpture to show you today. Unfortunately, I don't. And although I have no idea whether it ever survived, it is the one thing I would most dearly love to have to remember him by.

There is one song that is played more frequently at more funerals, wakes and Celebrations of Life – all over the world – than any other. It was recorded – in one take – in Los Angeles in 1968 and gives voice – I think – to two more crucially significant words by which I think we can all remember Sasha… Two such simple words. For me – they are the linguistic embodiment of Marina's small plasticine sculpture – encapsulating his defiance and revolt against the regime into which he was born, and a mantra for how he had decided to live and work having turned his back on it…

Now – My Dear Ladies and Gentlemen – my problem here is that everybody in this room knew Sasha Levtov – and my gut feeling is that playing Frank Sinatra in the middle of my father's Eulogy is perhaps one small step too far… even for his eldest son… and – you know – you'd probably be right!!...

How-EVER!! How-EVER!! The pivotal refrain of Sinatra's world-conquering classic – "I did it my way" – somebody – anybody – right here, right now – give me – please – a more succinct and accurate way to sum up a guiding principal of Sasha's life. "I did it my way" sang Frank Sinatra – and Sasha Levtov could say the very same thing.

And yes, Sasha – you did. You most certainly did!...

He – genuinely – was a man who put all of his trust in the strength of his own convictions. I think he understood very early on what life in Russia would be like for him – and for those closest to him. I think he understood that all a person would have left – in the confines of their own head and heart – would be their own beliefs, their own convictions, their own sense of right and wrong. And he wanted to live those beliefs – outside of his head and his heart. In the open. I'm convinced that he was well aware that he was always going to be on the outside and marginalised if he remained in Soviet Russia. Suffocated by double-think and having to live his life talking in double-speak. Is that the reason he decided to persuade Nina to leave with him? I think it was.

He did what he believed he had to do. And it was his absolute conviction in what he was doing that saw him through. And so – I believe that Sasha Levtov arrived in the United Kingdom knowing that – whatever he was going to do – "he was going to do it his way"!...

Now, the truth is that I don't honestly recall too much joy and happiness before we left Russia. But that makes perfect sense. There had to have been an unbelievably huge weight of responsibility on his shoulders. I remember him being serious and quiet.

And how could it have been any different? Here was a young man who had turned his back on the accepted political orthodoxy. He had been defying and secretly rebelling against the authorities for years. A head-strong individual who had fraternised with intellectuals, artists and musicians – people who the authorities would have considered dangerous and deviant. Here was a man who had risked imprisonment by reading, copying and circulating banned literature, photographing page after page of it onto microfilm on his mother's kitchen table – and roping in my poor mother as his accomplice for good measure!!...

…

…

All that happened because when he arrived here all of you gave him hope. Right from the beginning. Because you gave him a reason to believe that the values he felt so passionately about could and would be shared by others. And all those photos – well – they're the history that followed…

And so what happens, Dear Friends, if you do manage to extricate yourself from the grip of Soviet Russia? What happens if all the stars – somehow – do align? What happens if Fate, and Lady Luck and Della Thompson all turn up at once (in no particular order of importance – I hasten to add Della!…) What do you do if you actually get to start your life all over again? In a society which values independent thinking, values the arts, and which encourages the pursuit of knowledge.

I'll tell you what you do…

You become a teacher. You dedicate your life's work to being a mentor to others. To open doors for them – doors to a world of differing values, priorities, necessities. You set the goal of your professional career as the furthering of someone else's ability to see, to hear, to question, and to understand. That's what you can do for somebody by giving them the opportunity of becoming a musician… And you do it all in a language that is truly universal, timeless and inclusive.

One of the first things that was stated publicly about Sasha's passing – from wording suggested by Inna – was that having arrived in Bognor all those years ago Sasha dived into teaching the classical guitar “…almost straight away with barely any English”.

Early on, I recall criticising him – in a fit of impetuous childish pique – for having the arrogance and the audacity to assume that he could just swan into Bognor – take out his guitar – and make a life and a living. Just like that!

“But son”, he replied, “Why do you think I’m at a disadvantage? I’m teaching all our new friends music. Music is a language. But a language that needs no dictionary and no interpreter”. Father – 1, Petulant Son – nil!! But what a very good point. And how very well made!

And that language – music – is precisely what came to define him. It was his heartbeat. It was the core of his being. In one way or another music is the glue that holds this entire room and all of us in it together right now!

I think Sasha knew how grateful and appreciative people were of his efforts, but I don’t know if he actually understood quite to what extent. He did what he did because he believed in it. Because that was who he was.

Many years ago I found myself backstage at the Royal Festival Hall, face to face with an undisputed legend of the pianistic virtuosi who had just completely scrambled my poor brain and sense of musical reasoning with an exhibition of such profound pianistic brilliance that I was not sure, at that moment, that I had ever properly understood what it meant to sit in front of that instrument. Standing in front of the Maestro, the only impassioned words that were able to tumble clumsily out of my mouth were: “How can you possibly allow yourself to play like that?!”. I think I was downright rude to the man!

There was a momentary pause… And then he said to me: “Because I have to play like that. Because I cannot play in any other way”. We spoke in Russian – and the Russian word for ‘having to do something’ carries a great deal of moral imperative. It’s like you have to do it against your will. As if it’s inevitable. As if you have no choice… Sasha. Was. Exactly. The. Same. He was the way he was. And he could not have been any different if he tried. And everything he did came from a hard-wired conviction that this is the way he had to do it… and that he really did need to do it “His Way”.

Now – let me be the first to acknowledge, that with Sasha “My Way” had a way of sometimes turning into “My Way – Or The High Way”, but which of us hasn’t been prone to just a wee smidge of stubbornness and bluster from time to time?... Let he who is without sin cast the first stone! If little Leo – Fran and Yuli’s irrepressible bundle of two-year-old energy – if little Leo is allowed to shake his wee fists and be really quite upset with a given situation, then why shouldn’t we extend the same largesse to his late grandfather in days gone by?... We’re all human.

I think those two words “My Way” – really do explain a lot about him. They not only tell you everything you need to know about how and why he felt it right to uproot his young family and drag them to another continent – with most of the actual travel taking place under the cover of darkness, may I add – which made it all the more terrifying…

But those same two words also explain why – for example – beautiful ornate chandeliers hang from the ceiling of the Recital Hall – and why the entire stage is draped with exquisite heavy regal drapes… Because he insisted on it… Because this was simply how it had to be… Because that was “the vision”!...

Sasha worked tirelessly the way he did not because it brought him accolades or acclaim or praise. He did it all because that was him – through and through. He would stand at the back of the Recital Hall during the evening concerts with his eyes closed, listening intently, sometimes with a faint smile. But never the self-absorbed smile of somebody basking in the glory of their achievements. He never sought out the recognition or applause. I have read many of your messages speaking to how humble he was in everything he did. I agree with that wholeheartedly. He was simply on a mission to bring music – and everything that’s good and important about music – to as many people as possible.

And what that belief in the power of music gave him – was an irrepressible zest for life. And here we have another truism – again from some of those first lines written by Inna – which spoke of his “boundless energy, which at times felt infinite”. And that boundless energy is precisely what allowed him to do everything that he was able to do.

But the absolute truth in all of this is that you all helped build Sasha’s legacy just as much as he did. It has been a massive collaborative effort. That is why the theme of gratitude is so prominent in what we’ve come here to celebrate today. That is his legacy.

That was his vision – bringing everybody together, bringing everyone along… Whether they liked it or not!!... And that AGAIN is why he would want me to thank you. For believing in him… and – sometimes through gritted teeth – coming along for the ride…

And – what a ride it’s been. Starting with The Old School in Bersted in 1993… Then the Great Migration to the School in Sudley Road three years later… All of it – it felt at times – achieved with only minutes to spare… Things finished “by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin”! And yet, somehow, miraculously, by the Grace of God, things happened. They came together – just in time … (usually)…

I never – ever – let Sasha forget that at the very first concert at the Recital Hall – the inaugural night of the Regis School of Music on 16 September 1996 – an evening with Richard Baker and Rafael Terroni – on that opening night the paint spelling out the words “Recital Hall” …

…was still wet on the lintel above the door as the first guests arrived and were ushered into that beautifully chandeliered hall for the very first time… I would do my level best to rub his nose in that to make some sort of childish point and he would simply say “So – it all came together, didn’t it?”…

Let’s face it. He had the last laugh! So often! I cannot deny him that. We can – and should – all look back with pride at what he dragged us, kicking and screaming, to establish, and to build… The proof is very much in the pudding. His long-suffering family… well, we moaned and we grumbled. Oh my word how we Moaned and Groaned and Grumbled!...

I’m first in the queue. I admit it! His insatiable pace would drive me to distraction… “Dad – will you please just leave these poor people alone? You can’t have concerts every other day! Give us all a rest!”, I’d beg him… And that’s it right there – he never wanted to rest. Always on the go. What was it that Inna said? “Boundless energy, which at times felt infinite”. But perhaps I was the one who was completely missing the point…. Maybe the truth is that you cannot actually get enough. And that perhaps you shouldn’t ever get enough. There’s more music in the world than anyone can possibly experience in any lifetime. And if you’re the source – the inspiration – if you’re the dynamo driving so much of that to happen – then maybe you have a duty to let as many people enjoy and experience as much of it as possible…

And you shared in it all. With grace and good humour. And forbearance. And patience. And because of that, I am genuinely convinced that you all have a massive amount of personal investment in what Sasha created. I honestly believe that whoever has supported and encouraged him over all these years has an undeniable moral shareholding – if you like – in the legacy that he leaves behind…

Hold on – this isn't a Celebration… This is an AGM!!

Well, seeing as we're all here…

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me please to welcome you all to the inaugural Annual General Meeting of the shareholders of "Sasha Levtov Legacy Ventures Limited".

Now – we do have two matters on our agenda which need to be put to a vote, so could I please ask all those in favour of electing Alexander Mikhailovich Levtov to the post of Spiritual Honorary Chairman to please raise your hands??

Good. (Salary – one large watermelon per quarter).

Next: Item 2: all those in favour of the Regis School of Music – the company's primary fixed asset – developing and growing and expanding and attracting new members and reaching out to new audiences and remaining the beating heart and vibrant soul of the music scene in Bognor Regis. In perpetuity!

All those in favour?? Good! Right – That's it. Our AGM is concluded.

I should point out, actually, that the company's Accounts show an outrageous amount of credit in the "Goodwill" column! Very evidently a reserve that you have all been paying into for quite some time. Well, it will stand the Regis School of Music in very good stead for many years to come…

But apart from the incredibly real – living and breathing – edifice that is the Regis School of Music, what we all have of Sasha now is our memories. You have lot of yours and we have lots of ours. And those memories, I think, hinge so often on specific moments. Moments that we all experienced with him, around him… because of him… in spite of him… Those moments – all added together – they give us the character that he was. And yet each one individually is something we each of us carry separately and will cherish on our own.

Can Inna really claim not to subconsciously know every single bar of Mahler's First Symphony off by heart? Probably not – Dad would drive her back to Purcell School with them both listening to that one symphony on loop over and over… Mahler being perhaps Sasha's most revered composer of them all…

Will we ever forget Dad reading to us the most emotionally fraught and downright depressing passages from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables as inspirational and edifying bedtime stories – ensuring we fell asleep crying, sobbing – and truly miserable…

Or that one Christmas, so early on, when the night before Father Christmas was guaranteed to attend at Lyon Street on account of the obscene amount of piano, cello and violin practice that had been done, a poster appeared on the velux window in the loft room advertising his imminent arrival. The three of us were captivated. Especially when Dad pointed out that the poster had been stuck to the outside of the window… Fancy that! Father Christmas was real after all!...

Or how about memories conjured up by just one word?

Take the Russian word "Tachka", for instance… When uttered, in our family, that word engenders a sharp intake of breath – followed by a flood of recollections that span many many years. “Tachka”, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the Russian word for Wheelbarrow. And how is such a basic and unassuming item of agricultural machinery able to assist us with understanding the inner workings of Alexander Levtov?...

Well – I have an answer for you. And that is – because when he emigrated from the Soviet Union with his young family in the dying months of 1979, Sasha Levtov brought with him to the South Coast of England a faithful and fully-functioning version of Soviet Collectivised Farming!...

My Dear Friends, I beseech you to look closely at this photograph and try as hard as you possibly can to sympathise and empathise with the three helpless indentured serfs you see in this image – that’s Inna, Ilya and myself.

Now – you may say to me that the dispossessed peasants in this photograph look “Happy”! You may feel that these downtrodden workers appear to be “Content With Their Lot”! They’re smiling, after all! Well – exploited workers in State Archive photographs such as this one – usually ARE, aren’t they?! Sasha Family Propaganda Service – that’s what that irreplaceable photograph is!...

Yes, the allotment off Amberley Drive, or should I say State Collectivised Farm No.1 for the West Sussex Oblast – was a central feature of our family’s weekends for many many years. The allotment cost him a peppercorn rent, and he was deeply and eternally grateful for having been given such a wonderful tract of arable land by the local executive – for such a pittance! He adored that allotment. It was his little sanctuary, a bit of calm. Away from his teaching room, the School, his study and his computer – which in recent years just stayed on continuously – this allotment was his place of peaceful reflection. It was his link to nature and the natural world – something that he felt was intrinsically linked to the worlds of art and music.

The Lyon Street Proletariat spent many weekends – in weather fine and not so fine – tending to our individually assigned beds. And the reason for mentioning our Tachka, or wheelbarrow, is because our father promised Ilya and myself 50 pence for each wheelbarrow of horse manure that we brought back to our patch from the central manure pit. A deeply unpleasant task at the height of summer, but all of it now a source of many happy memories of the whole family enjoying the simple peasant-style pleasures of picking and devouring one’s own strawberries…Sasha would not have traded that allotment for anything in the world.

Now, when I briefly canvassed my family members for any moments they felt ought to find a place in this Eulogy, one in particular received an automatic, unequivocal and unanimous vote for inclusion… My Dear Friends, please indulge me, and allow me to share with you an occasion that has truly gone down in Levtov Family Folklore – and which I resurrect for you today because – quite simply – this was Sasha at his very best…

One fine day our Mother summoned Ilya and myself to the kitchen and placed on the table before us that quintessential icon of 20^th Century confectionary…

A Mars Bar… Sasha strode in and offered to cut it in half for us. Ilya and I were overjoyed. We sat down opposite him, as he placed the chocolate bar in the middle of a small plate and picked up a paring knife. Now, I’m afraid to say, that the division of the Mars Bar didn’t go quite as he’d planned – and it was evident that the two halves were not equal. Ilya and I exchanged glances traditionally reserved for each other by young male siblings – which is to say petty loathing tinged with panic. Which one of us would get the smaller half?! But, but… wise King Sasha Solomon of Lyon Street was having none of it. “No, no, no – I’m going to put this right”, he said. “I’m going to – even this up – for you”, he said. Using a Russian idom that holds exalted status in our family as a result of his use of that word on this singular occasion…

With those words – Sasha cut into the larger of the two halves so as to restore symmetry and parity. Reasonable. Alas – the second cut proved as wayward as the first. Oh dear! Father looked most dismayed. This third cut – he promised – would put everything right! Incidentally… he muttered something about discarding the offending unequal slice of chocolate he had just cut… By which I mean it disappeared into his mouth!... Aiming now at the other – larger – half of the chocolate bar, Sasha made yet another attempt to reestablish equality and declared proudly that he would at last succeed in “evening up” the two halves for us. But again the knife was wide of the mark and again the halves were unequal and again apologies were made … and a further slice of Mars Bar disappeared into the mouth of our Patriarch… Who was now visibly shaking with laugher…

At this point it dawned on Ilya and myself that we had become unwitting hostages to a situation that was fast headed for a most unsatisfactory denoumént. The slicing continued – in elegantly thin slivers – from one half and then the other – NEVER EQUAL! – with systematically less and less chocolate left on the plate. The exponential rise in my and Ilya’s levels of frustration, anguish and despair – My Dear Friends – was matched only by the growing inability of both mother and father to contain their laughter… I am genuinely unsure whether Ilya and I got any of that infamous Mars Bar at all. What we did get was a memory we shall never ever forget…

What is particularly memorable – for me – throughout that dark traumatic afternoon – was the unbridled childish glee with which that entire operation was performed. He knew exactly what he was doing – and he loved every last second of it… Along with every last wafer-thin slice of that Mars Bar!!.. He had a very cheeky, almost naughty giggle at times, as if he were getting ready to have a jolly good belly laugh … at a joke that he hadn't told you yet! The sort of mischievous impishness that – to my mind – would always be appropriately accompanied by Grieg's Peer Gynt suite in the background…

And therefore, I'm not in the slightest bit surprised that so many of your recent messages made specific reference to his sense of humour…

Yes… Sasha Levtov's legendary sense of fun and mischief…How else, Ladies and Gentlemen, can I possibly explain, justify or condone what now follows…

Ladies and Gentlemen… what wouldn't I give to have been a fly on the wall that day!...

… “Sasha – you lovely crazy Russian man – Snake Charming?? Really?? We are a Guitar Club!! We can’t possibly… Can we??” … My Dear Friends, the answer, of course, is “Yes – We Can”!...

“Yes – We Can” – My Friends – are words that Barack Obama stole from my father! Sasha Levtov had been saying them for much much longer. He lived by them. They had become a personal motto to him – “Yes – We Can”. And these are words – and any of you who knew even the smallest bit about him know this – these words would inevitably be followed by words that were even scarier!.. “Yes – We Can” tripped effortlessly into “And Now We Will!”…

Incidentally, this was the root cause of one of the very few bust-ups I can ever remember having with Mr Levtov, Snr. It was a confrontation of biblical proportions. Up until that day I think I had no idea that saying “I Can’t” to a man who woke up every morning of his life saying “I Can” could cause such a dire – albeit temporary – degradation of a father-son relationship! I cannot for the life of me recall the precise context, but the upshot (oh so memorable) was that I had to basically concede to him that, well, “I couldn’t”. Not that I wouldn’t, no, I would if I could, but that for whatever reason that thing felt beyond me and, thus, my position was that… I couldn’t. Bad, Bad Decision! Sasha reacted as if I had spoken the most blasphemous, incendiary and despicably insulting words a human being was capable of. “What do you mean – you can’t?” he hissed at me! Well that taught me a lesson!... His retort was delivered with such withering incredulity and disbelief that I could have dared to say such a horrid thing to him, to his face, that the only thing missing from that moment was a Shakespearean-style soliloquy ending something along the lines of…

You odious toad – saying that to me

No son of mine shall you now be…!

I take that on the chin – you really should go through life trying hard to always say “I can”. And if you’re not Sasha Levtov – we lesser mortals should at the very least always be able to say “But I’ll give it a jolly good go…!”…

So – back to Snake Charming!! And this – my Dear Friends – this was no aberration. This is not some outlandish departure from a much more prosaic norm. No! – Oh heavens, no! This was but the latest in a series of the most fantastical proposals to have sprung from Sasha’s imagination…

And let me emphasise that Snake Charming – on this occasion – was being proposed to a Committee and a Club Membership already reeling from the psychological trauma inflicted in previous years by … THIS!

THAT – Ladies and Gentlemen – is a nine-foot imitation palm tree!

There were lots of them! Forming the backdrop to the stage.

With apes in them!!

Munching bananas!!!

Sasha – you can’t play Villa Lobos with a monkey at your back!

What always – always – shone through was his unabashed love of fun, laughter and entertainment. The world need not be a dour and soulless place – just look there – Sasha’s cheeky grin – spreading a little mirth and a little merriment.

But in all seriousness, my Dear Friends, my father was – in his core musical beliefs – an arch conservative, a puritanical advocate of the classical guitar only – and exclusively – in its classic guitar form. I myself sailed very close to that particular wind and was almost ex-communicated in my early teenage years for daring to bring home an example of what Sasha immediately christened “The Naughty Guitar”, or – even worse – “The Devil’s Guitar”! Anything that required electrical current and amplification, Ladies and Gentlemen, was very much frowned upon…

I stand before you today, therefore, secure in the knowledge that his strait-laced and staunchly conservative values as to the sanctity of the classical guitar would never – ever –

have allowed my father to himself come anywhere near a so-called Naughty Guitar… What? … What is it? …

… Sasha Levtov was the most liberally-minded, easy going, democratic advocate of all forms of the guitar … And most importantly, again, as we can see, he was not afraid to have laughter directed at himself.

No, I’m convinced, that deep down Sasha accepted that we inhabit a wonderfully rich and diverse musical universe. I really do. After all – music has deep historical roots, it’s linked inextricably to the trials, tribulations and suffering of mankind, it communicates the very best and – at times – the very worst of us and the societies we live in…

… I’m not talking about classical music!... I’m talking about the Blues! And Jazz!

“Yes, Sasha – if you can hear me – both Jazz and the Blues are respected and legitimate forms of musical expression… I’m sorry. That’s the end of it”…

… “No, … No, … Don’t get clever with me. They are. I’m not arguing with you!”

… "Have you forgotten? Look!

What's that? Who's that?? That's you that is! I have witnesses!"…

And what does this photograph mean, Ladies and Gentlemen? (It is one of my favourites). It means – that in years to come – when you receive the Regis School of Music Season Brochure, and you see in that brochure something called “Michael Erskine’s Monday Night Jazz and Blues Club”… Come along! Support it! It’ll be brilliant – I promise you…

… Because it’s what Sasha would have wanted!

The point I made about Sasha’s insatiable appetite for proving to us all that he could channel his inner Frank Sinatra and do everything “His Way” – well, frankly – it gave him Super Powers! It did…

Such as the belief that he could pick up and move grand pianos – all by himself!

Or that he didn't need scaffolding – that he would just be his own human scaffolding!

…

Or let me offer you this – my personal favourite – and the archetypal example of how my father's brain worked…

Are you ready?...

This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is a 1968 Ford Escort Mk.I van... I think we can all agree that this vehicle – as it stands in this photograph – would have been woefully inadequate and inappropriate for its intended use as the very first Levtov Family Tour Bus. “How” – I hear you ask – “are the Levtov Children supposed to gaze across the rolling green expanses of the beautiful West Sussex countryside cooped up in the back of a van like that with no windows?"... My Friends! It was all in a day’s work for Super-Sasha! He had absolutely no problem – at all – installing for our travelling pleasure – in one afternoon – a full-length window along the entire side panel… And he did it – singlehandedly...

… using THIS… (Absolutely true – he used that! Nina was furious!)

You know that phrase – ‘Necessity Being The Mother Of Invention’? Well, I believe that phrase must have been invented for a certain type of Russian male born after the Second World War, generally, and for my father, in particular!...

But that ingenuity and his all-embracing “Yes – We Can” outlook on life was only half the problem! The real problem – for all of us – was that this ingenuity was then wedded to a formidable and devious imagination! Lock those two in a room and add his sense of humour on top of that? Well – at that point – nobody was safe!...

And the establishment for which Sasha reserved his most outlandish, hair-brained leaps of imagination??...

The organisation that for years has borne the brunt of his insatiable penchant for theatrics??...

The fine veritable institution that was the beloved petri-dish for his never-ending ability to invent ways to amuse and entertain…?

Of course – it can only be – the West Sussex Guitar Club!

To say that the Club Evenings and the Club Parties which the Committee and Members have enjoyed – or should I say “been subjected to”…. To say that they are legendary is a crass and insulting understatement!...

I have heard tales of the grand piano on the Recital Hall’s stage being turned into a gypsy caravan… and on another occasion into an old sailing ship with actual masts. I’ve heard tell of the stage itself being transformed into the courtyard of a medieval castle complete with portcullis and functioning drawbridge… or the stage entrance becoming a giant fireplace complete with imitation flames… apparently the Recital Hall also played host to a full-scale model of a Venetian gondola… not to mention the desecration of those beautiful chandeliers by hanging a parachute from them to recreate a circus big-top… I understand a particular Club favourite was the recreation of the Andes mountain range across the back of the stage with cotton wool depicting the misty peaks…

Well if all that was the Sublime – then kindly allow me to take you straight to the Ridiculous… What has to take the Olympic Gold Medal for me is … sellotaping sparklers to the sides of a giant watermelon to resemble thrusters on a space rocket so it could careen on an intergalactic mission around the Recital Hall on a tea-trolley??... If he hadn’t become a guitar teacher in Bognor Regis this man would have made a lot of children up and down the land very happy as Head of Product Design at Mattel Toys!

What’s worse is that he had this magical way of just drawing you in – making you complicit – making you enjoy the fun almost in spite of yourself. This is his own Concert Hall – Ok? – and he rides in on a bicycle – dressed as an Italian Ice Cream Salesman – riding around and around the hall handing out cornettos to the Club Members! How could you not revert to childhood and just get involved? One moment you’re thinking “A bicycle?! Oh My God” and the very next you’re asking him “Do you have any mint choc chip?”…

Imaginative? Ingenious? Yes – and an awful lot of pure unadulterated slapstick! At the very least I think this explains why Sasha had a life-long admiration for Charlie Chaplin…

But in all seriousness – I wish to place on record my unreserved respect for every individual who has ever served on the Guitar Club’s Committee – I really do! You are a hardy bunch indeed!

And the terror of what must have awaited you at every Guitar Club Committee meeting! It wasn’t the Club finances, not the scheduling, not the artist’s fee demands. No, … oh no! The unspoken issue lurking at the end of each and every agenda… stalking behind each of you – circling the room – just waiting to pounce were you to let your guard down…

Something really scary… Much scarier than – THAT….

Ladies and Gentlemen – I never saw this photograph until two weeks ago. The only way I could identify that creature as my father was on account of his favourite Farrah trousers!

So – this frightening concept was unspoken and undefined… and it boiled down, simply, to “What on Earth will this man think up next?...”. It must have kept you up at night! One of the most amazing and memorable messages we have received since Sasha passed away summed him up better than anything else in a passage that contained the following line: “…we thought he was joking when he said he wanted to….”. That. Was. Him! In the next paragraph – this wonderful and loyal friend of his of so many years stated: “Who else but Sasha would have thought of…”. Again – nail hit squarely on the head!...

We just spent our lives just trying to keep up, didn't we?!...

Another thing we spent our lives trying to keep up with was Sasha's undeniable talent … as a linguist… It has always amused me just how much trouble the English language can get you in if you don’t have your wits about you. Typing out an email to a few people and signing off with the word “Regards” is great. We all do it. Get one letter wrong, however, and you’ve just called them a bunch of “Retards”. Well, over the years, the occasional ill-positioned letter – or word – sure got Sasha Levtov into all heaps of trouble, didn’t it? Oh yes – each one of us has a story to tell about what Nina has so eloquently christened the occasional “Sasha-ism”!!...

Spelling composers’ names was an occupational hazzard for him. You can’t go too far wrong with messing up a letter or two in “Beethoven”, for example. You sure as hell can with “Schnittke”… Sometimes it took just one letter… Can we imagine for a second how many times – in any given week of lessons – a music teacher must refer to “Shit Music”?? … I mean “Sheet Music”, “SHEET music”… I’m so sorry!...

Or how about the time he wished to have the company of as many of you as possible at the Regis School of Music for a “recital” … but in fact extended an invitation for you all to attend a “rectal”… Just one missing letter and the whole world laughs!...

And if it wasn’t the written word that got him, it would be the spoken one! Sasha’s Obituary – so beautifully written by Mum and Inna – mentioned Amanda and Graham – hallowed names in our family’s history. And rightfully so. But – dear-oh-dear – what my father’s well-intentioned pronunciation must have done to the self-esteem of that fine young man Graham – who started studying with Sasha – and who cooked us steak-and-kidney pie and oven chips every Tuesday night whilst Mum and Dad taught classes at the Rikkyo School in Rudgwick… What trauma did my father inflict on that exemplary guitar student by insisting on calling him “Gra-H-am”?? Gra-H-am – I am so so sorry! You are owed a formal apology on behalf of this family – with full rehabilitation – and I offer it to you, unreservedly, today!... And this would have been in the very same era that Sasha was angling to change our car to a Pigeot (as opposed to a Peugeot) and agreeing to buy me my first pair of Leviss jeans.

But then there was a curious grey-area where you almost suspected he was profiting from his perceived difficulties with the niceties of English pronunciation … and that the joke was very much on you!... Like the time Ilya and Inna and myself had gathered in our living room to fire up an old Saisho VHS video recorder to enjoy yet another viewing of our favourite “Ghost Busters” – with some friends… There was stunned silence indeed as Dad barged in – demanding to know whether we had started watching those “Ghost Bastards”!...

They say that English is one of the hardest languages any foreigner can ever attempt to learn. My dear, late father, is testament to just how right they are!...

Now: the strength of Sasha's convictions needs no further elaboration. You really don’t need me to tell you anything about that! But what I believe is that having been given the opportunity to live and work here, in this country, amongst you, Sasha transposed his “My Way” philosophy into an all-embracing, all-conquering philosophy of “Yes – We Can”. And the emphasis was on the “we” – which means he took his personal artistic drive and transposed it into something that was first and foremost there to benefit others – to benefit those around him. He left a land ruled by Communism and was welcomed by you into a Democracy. Perhaps his life was a personal homage – through music – to the Greek origins of the word – “Demos” – meaning “the people”. For him it was always “for everyone else – for the many”… If we could give this drive of his a slogan or a mantra – how about “Musical Democracy – On Steroids!”.

The world we live in shows just how important the binding inclusivity of music really is… Perhaps today we spend too much time fixating on what divides us and separates us… rather than taking the time to reflect on what unites us and brings us closer together. Well music does exactly that. And that’s exactly what he devoted his life to. And that devotion was based on unswerving loyalty to his other favourite mantra – “And Now We Will” – which meant that for him anything and everything was possible if it served music’s higher purpose…

Above all else – Sasha remained true to his vision of how things could be…

Yes… we shall have chandeliers in the Recital Hall...

Yes… we shall have gorgeous regal drapes on its stage…

And yes… we can all play Villa Lobos – with the monkeys….

Put very simply – he was a man of profound principal and a passionate believer in what he thought was right.

Of that, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have for you one last example…

In the early 1980s we started going to concerts as a family. One day we found ourselves at a large-scale orchestral performance – in what I remember thinking was the largest and most opulent concert hall I had ever seen. It was absolutely full, and we had somehow managed to get seats very close to the stage. The conductor walked out, bowed, turned to his orchestra – and as was customary in those days – launched his musicians into the national anthem… Except the national anthem that started playing wasn’t “God Save The Queen”. Because that day, the concert was being given by a visiting symphony orchestra from Russia, and the anthem that blared out over that entire huge auditorium was the national anthem of the USSR…

With due deference and conformity to accepted etiquette – the entire audience rose to their feet…

…With one exception...

Sasha Levtov remained seated. He did not stand up…

Just like Marina’s plasticine sculpture – I didn’t understand it then. I do now. This was not an act of defiance. It was not a petulant gesture of rebelliousness. Nor was it done for anybody’s benefit. He did it for himself. He remained seated because his self-respect demanded it. The only thing that mattered – in that moment – was principle. This was a regime that had ripped up his and his wife’s passports in front of their eyes and told them that “their type” was not welcome in the great Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. How was it that this man was now going to stand and salute everything that regime stood for? To do so would have been fundamentally on principle wrong. And it wasn’t going to happen. And it didn’t. Respect. Big Big Respect!

At the very beginning of the sixteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci painted a portrait that has come to be accepted – universally – as the archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance. It is undoubtedly true that the Mona Lisa is one of the most incredible pieces of art ever created. What is equally true is that no human being can look at that painting … and think the same thing. That’s because she looks into the eyes of every single person who peers into her mercurial eyes – differently. They say that the unnerving and disconcerting thing about staring into the Mona Lisa’s eyes is the feeling that she can see right through you – that she looks into your very soul – and sees everything that’s there. She sees every person’s own individual truth – a truth that is not necessarily universal, nor black and white, nor the same for any two people. So truths can be as individual as we are.

And our truths are the products of everything around us and everything that happens to us. Dmitry Shostakovich is another composer that was of immense importance and significance for Sasha. Shostakovich left one of the most important musical legacies of the 20^th Century – of any century. His music speaks to the entire gamut of human experience and is steeped in the most sophisticated and harrowing understanding of what it means to be human. But Shostakovich would not have been able to compose a single note had he not been forced to survive and work his entire life under the inhuman brutality of the Soviet regime… His imperative to compose – and to be able to compose what he did – was as much a product of everything inside him as it was a product of everything that surrounded him. It came from his own individual truth as he saw it and believed it to be…

So what would the Mona Lisa have seen looking into Sasha’s eyes and into his soul? What truth would she have seen there??...

As I have said already – I believe that for Sasha – the heartbeat that nurtured and sustained him for so long – his truth – came from his profound belief in principle and his passionate belief in what he thought was right…

But that’s where the problem lies… Because we human beings are flawed. None of us are perfect. And as imperfect human beings, we don’t always get it right. An essential part of being human – I believe – is having the wisdom to see that. To accept that in life you may not always be right – about everything – all of the time. That’s what it means to be human. Science tells us that we are something called Homo Sapiens. Did you know that Homo Sapiens means “Wise Man” in Latin? I certainly didn’t. But it does. Which means that to be human is to be wise – or at the very least try as hard as you possibly can!

The reality is that whilst we remember and celebrate and say goodbye to someone who is no longer with us – life goes on – and that life is for the living. But with living comes a duty and a responsibility to find in our hearts enough understanding, acceptance and forgiveness … to understand, to accept and to forgive somebody’s imperfect, incomplete but utterly sincere attempt … “to get it right”.

Dostoyevsky once wrote that “we forgive that which we understand”. I do not know of a more meaningful utterance. However somebody went about it… however they tried to do whatever they set out in life to do… whatever the net result of all those efforts may have been… if we can bring ourselves to understand their motivations, their beliefs, their fears, their preoccupations … if we can find it in us to understand all that… then we should find ourselves in a position to forgive…

“Shto U Kovo Bolit” – is a priceless gem of Russian wisdom. I have spent maybe 30 years trying to come up with a worthy English translation of those four Russian words. On the face of it they translate as “Everyone has something that pains them”. But the actual meaning is much much deeper. What these words speak to is the idea that every single one of us has something that lives inside us, and it cannot be identified or explained, but that something bothers us, it troubles us, it causes us fear or anxiety… it’s something that is with us every waking hour, and it is what urges us on to do what we think we need to do... And that something is different for each one of us…

I realised that I have spent so long worrying about the translation of those words, I had completely forgotten what those marvellous words actually mean.

What I’ve realised, is that what those words actually refer to is our very own – individual – and never-ending attempt … to “get it right”.

In trying to marshal some of these thoughts for you today I have stumbled upon little pieces of my own wisdom that I know will never leave me. And that wisdom came to me from him. Because of him. As a result of everything that he did in his life that I have tried so hard to understand. Some wisdom that I have inherited from him.

No father can bequeath his son a greater gift.

Life can indeed be odd, and it has a habit of teaching you in unpredictable ways when you least expect it to. It would appear that we can be mentored and inspired in completely unintended and unforseen ways… The truth here is that he continues to teach me from beyond the grave…

Now THAT's some teacher!...

It would be impossible for me to end what I have to say today without acknowledging the profound personal debt I owe my father. It’s a debt I could never repay him when he was with us, and it’s a debt that I will never be able to repay him now that he’s gone. The simple fact is that my debt to him is unrepayable.

I am consoled solely by the fact that a number of years ago I was – at the very least – able to acknowledge that debt to him – looking him in the eye. To tell him very clearly that I knew it was there.

The absolute and unshakeable truth is that he saved my life. And not just once – but twice. My debt… is in fact a double one.

The first is to do with the possibility of dying young at the hands of the Soviet regime. Mercifully, I would have been too young to have been caught up in the war in Afghanistan – a conflict that scared the Russian nation and psyche beyond belief. But what about the First Chechen War? Would I have evaded compulsory military service and avoided being sent to the Caucasus? If my luck had held – what would have happened when the Second Chechen War erupted three years later and lasted for a further decade? As things stand today, the truth is that – with all else being equal – had my father not made the decisions he made in his life, I – Ilya – and Yuli would be looking with increasing horror at what is happening in Ukraine. Would Sasha’s sons have dodged the bullet? Literally. Would we and our young families have survived this modern-day version of Russian Roulette? I don’t know. I’m not a betting man – nor was Sasha – but in today’s Russia, the odds for any male under the age of 60 get worse every day. But I – and my brothers – are not going to have to play that game – because of him. Because the decisions he made for us were – in the purest of terms – decisions of life and death.

My second – unrepayable – debt, is that having perhaps literally saved my life from being ended by having to live in that country, he gave me the chance of living a new life in a completely different one. A life in a country that respected the individual and an individual’s human rights, which upheld the rule of law and which promoted normal, decent, human values. These are all the things he knew that neither he – nor us – his family – could ever have in Russia. So he left it all behind – walked out on everything he knew – and knew he couldn’t live with – and walked into the unknown. With his wife and his two sons, and their two suitcases, and that one blanket, and that one classical guitar – in that guitar case hand-stitched by Mum from green felt and held together by dark brown parcel tape… He turned his back on his entire life up to that moment and led us onto a plane which would take off into the unknown. To a new life about which he must have known absolutely nothing… That’s bravery.

Death comes to us all, but I now see that he wanted me to face mine – hopefully – having lived a full life being a decent, honest, trustworthy individual to his family and his friends, and maybe having encouraged, inspired and supported some others along the way. That is a worthy life. And maybe that takes bravery and conviction too.

But it turns out that a moral debt is no different to any other. What gets you is the compound interest. The longer I live – the longer I benefit from what he did for me. And from what he gave me. And the bigger – and bigger – my debt becomes. Given everything that my father did over the course of his life to allow me to stand here in front of you today – I understand that I don’t know anything about bravery at all…

A few years ago now, a remarkable person was put in the unenviable position of having to explain the passing of a loved one to a child. No easy task. “You know”, she said to the child, “we all have a little battery inside us. Well – sometimes that little battery just runs out”…

How incredibly profound.

Well… what I can tell you categorically about my father – Sasha – is that he was a staunch, lifelong advocate of rechargeable batteries. And he recharged and recharged his many, many, times, keeping the lights of his inspiration, dedication and love for classical music burning so brightly for so long. But unfortunately, no battery lasts for ever…

And yes – I'm right back where I started – and "his boundless energy, which at times felt infinite"…