AFRTS classical music program opens with The Procession of the Sardar by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov from Caucasian Sketches. Ippolitov-Ivanov's works include operas, orchestral music, chamber music and a large number of songs. His style is similar to that of his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov. With the exception of his orchestral suite Caucasian Sketches ( Kavkazskiye Eskizi, 1894), which includes the much-excerpted "Procession of the Sardar", his music is rarely heard today.
