Under the renowned name of the Russian composer Alexander Borodin, The Borodin Trio will perform at 8 tonight in Schwab Auditorium.

The piano trio, a chamber group, includes violinist Rostislav Dubinsky, pianist Luba Edlina and cellist Yuli Turovsky.

"Contrasted to a quartet . . . there's much more soloistic writing," said James Lyon, assistant music professor. While in a quartet the group would work together and interweave, the trio highlights each person as a soloist, he said.

The Borodin Trio specializes in playing compositions with Russian nationalist influences, a genre Borodin helped create. Despite the emigration of Dubinsky and Edlina to the United States and Turovsky to Canada, the musicians still have a special feeling for Russian music.

"(Russian music is) their background, their heritage," said Mariedi Anders, the group's manager. "They play that better than any other kind of music."

Tonight, Tchaikovsky's Trio in A minor, Op. 50, Rachmaninoff's Trio No. 1 in G minor and Shostakovich's Piano Trio in E minor, Op. 67 are on the program.

"It's mostly very approachable music," Lyon said. Rachmaninoff's and Tchaikovsky's pieces are similar as they are both melodic and easy to listen to. Shostakovitch's piece reflects cynicism, maybe resulting from the destruction the composer saw during World War II, Lyon said.

The Tchaikovsky, the biggest piece on the program, lasts 45 minutes by itself. "It's so long it doesn't get programmed as often as it might," Lyon said. Dedicated to Borodin's friend and pianist Nicholas Rubinstein, the piece is elegiac, especially in the first movement where it is slow and wistful, he said.

The Trio formed after the three members emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1976.

"They emigrated because of great anti-Semitism . . . Millions, thousands emigrated and still do for that reason," Anders said, adding that all three players are Jewish.

All the musicians studied at the Moscow Conservatory. They have toured internationally as a chamber music group and have also worked with different orchestras.

Dubinsky founded and played for 30 years as the first violinist of The Borodin Quartet. After emigrating to the Netherlands, he taught at the Conservatory at The Hague. He currently directs the chamber music program at University of Indiana.

Edlina, Dubinsky's wife, has recorded most of Borodin's repertoire for piano and strings with the Quartet. She has also collaborated with Turovsky to record the Shostakovich and Prokofiev piano and cello sonatas. In addition, she is a piano faculty member at the University of Indiana.

Prize winner of the third Soviet Cello Competition and a laureate at the international "Spring of Prague" competition, Turovsky was a soloist with the Moscow Conservatory for 12 years. He is with the University of Montreal and founded the I Musici de Montreal Chamber Orchestra.

A trio member will discuss the performance an hour before the show, at 7. Tickets are available through the Eisenhower and Schwab Box Offices.