Kazakh Steppe for String Quartet (or “String Quartet No. 2”) is a seven-minute reconstruction of the Kazakhstani people’s past and of their nomadic culture. Scenes of Kazakh steppes, shamans, and baiga - one of the oldest traditions of Kazakh horse racing - have been the main source of inspiration and compositional creativity, and helped determine the dynamic and contrasting musical content of the piece. In this "Kazakh" string quartet, I try to challenge the Western strings to sound like instruments from the lesser-known musical culture. For this, new extended techniques have been used to imitate the sounds of traditional instruments such as the Shankobyz, Dombra, Kobyz and Balalaika.
 
The piece was originally written for the highSCORE Festival in Pavia, Italy, and premiered by the Quartetto Indaco. It then got revised in 2018 for the Intimacy of Creativity Festival in Hong Kong, where it was re- premiered by the Israeli Chamber Project. This piece has won the ‘Audience Vote Prize’ at the Intimacy of Creativity Festival in Hong Kong, and the ‘I Creation Mivos Quartet Composition Prize’ in New York. It also won the ‘Musicus Society Call For Scores’ in Hong Kong, got selected out of 2,200 works for the ‘Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra Call for Scores’ in Los Angeles, and was a finalist for the ‘ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award’. The piece has been performed in Italy, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, New York City, Tel-Aviv by ensembles such as the Quartetto Indaco, Israeli Chamber Project, Mivos Quartet, Kazakh State String Quartet, Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, and Converge Quartet.