St. Petersburg Duo St. Petersburg Duo



In memoriam
Konstantin Nosov

Vjacheslav Gaivoronski

was born in Moscow in 1949. At the age of 14 he came in touch to music. 1965 he started his studies at the Leningrad Conservatory and became a member of different ensembles, e.g. with Anatoly Vapirov. He started his first trio.

After examination in 1970 he got a job at the Theatre for Musical Comedy in Kemerovo, West Sibiria. He continued to play Jazz and, very surprising, he studied medicine at the same time.

Immediately after finishing these studies he returned to Leningrad, worked in a hospital and in 1978 he founded a new duo with the bass player Vladimir Volkow, who in the age of 18 just began to discover Jazz. For 10 years they have been the Leningrad Duo, which found a lot of appreciation in the former Soviet Union. But only in 1988 they could release their first record and only in 1989 they could perform first time in the west.

Guyvoronski could travel to the west and perform there in the last years quite a few times; he is now member of the Arkhangelsk Workshop Ensemble and published his first Solo-CD: Vyacheslav Guyvoronsky FOR Sergey Kuryokhin.
back to top of page back to music page


Vladimir Volkow

born 1960, is one of the most important bass players from Russia. He is a member of jazz-ensembles as well as of symphonic orchestres. Beside of Jazz he performs old music, here his instrument is the viola da gamba. He participated in many festivals (e.g. Vilnius, JazzJamboree Warsaw, Europa Festival Jazz Noci, in Münster und Zürich). Concerts in Russia, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and USA. He published records at Melodya and at Leo Records.

Vladimir Volkow is member of the ensemble Vershki da Koreshki, where musicians from Senegal, Tuva and Russia meet.

back to top of page back to music page

Their music does not impress you with its novelty or inventiveness, their performances do not boast of of mindblowingly dexterous solo passages, their presentation might even seem boring: no show, no gimmicks, no elctronics. Few musicians are so indifferent to fashion and so cool about success. Maybe these were the qualities which made their path to recognition so long and difficult.
Theirs is music about music. A fairly typical postmodern, eclectic, polystilistic approach. But whereas Chekasin and Breuker, Zorn and Kuryokhin are toying with the myriads of styles available, obviously enjoying themselves and letting the listener enjoy their weirdest phantasies, Gaivoronski and Volkow adress themselves and us to DEITY in music, to that spiritual perfection, to the ideas of the eternal and divine in art, to that something which transcendends aesthetics and becomes ethical, and which we find either in the work of a genius, or in the authenticity of genuine folk music.
All their reflections on the variety of musical worlds - the greatness of BACH (in their 'Advance to the Past' with B.A.C. and quotations from the 'Art of Fugue'), or Coltrane (...), or Russian folklore ('Russian Songs') - are recreated with an ascetic minimum of means. Two monophonic instruments.

Alexander Khan, 1989, in: DOCUMENT, Leo Record

Top of Page Back to music Page

In spring 95, Sergey Chernov wrote the following article in the St. Petersburg Times über:

Some unusual and innovative music can be heard at the Tavrichesky Garden this weekend. The Avant-Garde Jazz Festival, opening on Saturday, will include some of the most interesting musicians working in the jazz field.
... Trumpet player Vyacheslav Guyvoronsky will unveil a brand new project on the second day of the festival.
According to the artist, it can hardly be defined as contemporary jazz. Guyvoronsky says that it will sound like "super avant-garde," even to a jazz ear.
Guyvoronsky, who has been important on the local music scene for the last two decades, became famous mostly as part of a duo with double bass player Vladimir Volkov.
Two years ago jazz experts voted him "Russia's Best Jazz Musician." He has also written serious academic music, including ballets.
His performance at the Avant-Garde Jazz Festival will combine every musical genre that he works in. The result promises to be really unusual.
For example, Guyvoronsky is going to try to adapt old baroque music to the sound of a line-up which he describes as a "Gypsy tabor": tube, cello, accordion, English horn, flute, trumpet and percussion. "These instruments are difficult to go with one another timbre-wise, but the combination is interesting; also appealing that it is difficult to play in such a line-up," he said..
He hopes to use this music as background for the texts from the "Dove Book," a collection of ancient Russian spiritual folk songs.
The Volkov and Guyvoronsky duo disbanded in 1993 by mutual consent, but the festival's program gives hope for a one-time revival. Currently the two musicians only come together for studio work and hope to record all the music they wrote and performed since they started in the late 1970s. Their most recent output is last summer's CD "Yankee Doodle Travels," based on material from their US tour.
back to top of page back to music page


Records:

Yankee Doodle, V.Gayvoronski /Trompete und V. Volkow / Solyd Records 1994, SLR 0022 (Russia)

In memoriam
Konstantin Nosov

Paputnaya
(Road Song,
by M. Glinka)
CD cover: Yankee Doodle
Kings & Cabbages, Moscow Composers Orchestra, Conducted by Vladimir Miller. Leo Records Laboratory, 1994, LEO LAB 005 (Great Britain)CD Cover: Kings and Cabbages

Life at City Garden, Moscow Composers Orchestra and Sainkho, directed by Vladimir Miller. CD 95027, U-Sound 1995 (Russia)


The Caller

CD cover: Life at City Garden

Information and booking by: Nikolai Dmitriev, or by E-Mail

back to top of page back to music page

cmg@avantart.com
This Site's URL: http://www.avantart.com