Thousands of mourners flocked to the Moscow Conservatory on 28 April, where he was laid in an open coffin before the state funeral. This image itself - that of the 80-year-old being honoured at the conservatory where he himself studied - is representative of the demise of the "old set" of Soviet musicians;

those who withstood and sometimes flew in the face of the repressive Iron Curtain and who studied under and worked directly with the most renowned 20th-century Russian composers, including Shostakovich and Prokofiev.

How fitting and consoling it is then to see, in the programme for this year's West Cork Chamber Music Festival, the names of two musicians who are just as synonymous with the "old set" of the Russian school. For the last 30 years, Georgian pianist Elizabeth Leonskaja and Ukranian violinist Mikhail Kopelman have played hugely significant roles in the legacy of the Moscow Conservatory, the epicentre of the Soviet Union's musical golden age and a veritable conveyor belt in its output of outstandingly successful graduates.

The career of Leonskaja, who has been described as the "last great dame of the Soviet school" and "the Lioness of the keyboard", was undoubtedly nurtured and shaped by her friendship and study with Sviatoslav Richter, with whom she played duets from a young age, right up until the year of Richter's death in 1997. Similarly, Kopelman had the honour of studying at the conservatory with Yuri Yankelevich, under whose guidance Kopelman refined the skills that equipped him to lead, for 20 years, one of the world's greatest string quartets - the Borodin String Quartet.

Kopelman appears at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival with a new ensemble, the Kopelman quartet, which was formed in 2002. Each of his new colleagues, violinist Boris Kuschnir, violist Igor Sulyga and cellist Mikhail Milman, also graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in the 1970s. As founding members of the Moscow String Quartet, Kuschnir and Sulyga worked directly with Dmitri Shostakovich during the composition of his late string quartets, including the 8th Quartet, which the Kopelman will perform at the finale of the festival at Bantry House on 8 July.

Since leaving the Soviet Union in 1978 for Austria, where she made her Western debut at the Salzburg Festival, Leonskaja has been a household name in piano.

She has appeared as soloist with virtually all of the world's leading orchestras and, in the field of chamber music, is a regular collaborator with the Borodin String Quartet among others.

Audiences at Bantry House will have the opportunity to see Leonskaja perform a solo repertoire in the first of the festival's 'Stars in the Afternoon' concerts on 1 July before she gives her four chamber music performances - the Beethoven piano trio no 5 (with violinist Liza Ferschtman and cellist Peter Bruns), the Schumann piano quintet (Cuarteto Casals), the Tchaikovsky piano trio, (Kopelman and Milman) and, most fittingly of all, the Shostakovich piano quintet in G minor with the Kopelman Quartet on 6 July.

The 12th West Cork Chamber Music Festival boasts a countless number of other star soloists and ensembles over the course of its nine-day span - 30 June to 8 July.

For those with a penchant for the music of the voice, the festival has duly catered with performances by two sopranos, Lenneke Ruiten and Mary Hegarty, mezzosoprano Lyudmila Shkertil and baritone Christian Gerhaher. The appearance of violinist Isabelle Faust, she of the 'Sleeping Beauty' Stradivarius fame, is also cause for excitement.

Bookings can be made online for all the festivities on www. westcorkmusic. ie - quite a 'new-school' move for a festival that promises so much of the best of the old-school.