Vladimir Tarnopolski

A Russian composer born in Dniepropetrovsk (1955). He studied composition at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with Edison Denisov and Nikolai Sidelnikov. His graduate work, the Concerto for Cello (1980) was selected by the prominent Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky for a series of concert programs, titled "From the History of Russian Music". Since then works by Tarnopolski are regularly performed in Russia and abroad by numerous famous musicians, such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Valery Gergiev, Ingo Metzmacher, Vladimir Yurovsky, Reinbert de Leeuw, Alexander Lazarev, Vasily Sinaysky, Natalia Gutman, Yury Bashmet and many others.

Tarnopolski is a frequent guest in many Western contemporary music festivals, such as: Almeida Festival London, Beethovenfest Bonn, The Berliner Festwochen, Dresdner Tage fur Neue Musik, Frankfurter Musikfest, Holland Festival, Hommage aux Russes Paris, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Klangspuren festival in Austria, La Biennale di Venezia, Make Music Together in Boston, Manca festival in Nice, The Mannes festival in New York, Münchener Biennale, The Schleswig-Holstein Musikfest, Sonic Boom New York Festival, Tage fur Neue Musik Zurich, Warsaw Autumn, Wien Modern, The World Music Days of the ISCM and many others.

Tarnopolski has written pieces on commission for some of the world's leading orchestras, among them the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble InterContemporain, Musikfabrik, Schönberg Ensemble, Ensemble of Soloists of the Bolshoi Theatre, Klangforum Wien and others. His stage works were premiered at the Münchener Biennale, Beethovenfest Bonn, Barbican Hall London, Rencontres Musicales d'Evian, Contemporary Dance Festival Netherlands, Bergen Festival and others.

Tarnopolski's compositions contain a fulminently charged musical substance fitting into a concisely articulated, well-balanced construction. The composer's music combines in a paradoxical manner two aesthetical aspects. The first is a search for a new euphony, which is developed on the basis of a complexly constructed sound material, which abolishes the juxtaposition between consonance and dissonance, sound and noise, harmony and timbre, as well as electronic and acoustic instruments. The second is a refined post-modernist theatricality, filled with either joyful irony or surrealistic grotesquerie.

Tarnopolski plays a significant role in the development of contemporary Russian musical life. He was one of the initiators of ACM, the Association of Contemporary Music in Moscow (1989), which represented a group of composers, who reacted against the official Soviet cultural philosophy of "socialist realism". In 1993 he founded the Centre for Contemporary Music at the Moscow Conservatory, the first of its kind in Russia, and the Studio for New Music Ensemble.

In 1994 Tarnopolski founded the Moscow Forum, an annual International Festival of Contemporary Music, the main focus of which is the integration of contemporary Russian music with Western European contemporary music. His long-term projects "The Anthology of the Avant-garde", "Red Wheel. The Unknown Russian Music of the XX century", "Russia-Germany. Chapters of the XX Century Music History", "Freedom of Sound!", "Europe through the eyes of Russians. Russia through the eyes of Europeans" and others have obtained recognition in Russia and abroad.

For many years Tarnopolski has carried out a large-scale series of concerts of West-European music in Russia. Several European composers have been his guests in Moscow, presenting their pieces at the concerts and giving workshops for young composers at the Conservatory. Tarnopolski conducted the German, French, Italian, Austrian, the Netherlands Festivals in Moscow, which have become the important musical events in Russia.

Since 1992 Tarnopolski has been a professor of composition at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Many his students have won prizes at international competitions for young composers. Tarnopolski founded a new Contemporary Music Department in 2003. He has held numerous composition seminars in Russia, Austria, France, Germany, Great Britten, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, USA and other countries, including such universities as Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and others. Vladimir Tarnopolski has been the first and so far the only Russian composer who was invited as a docent to the Darmstadt International Courses for New Music (2010). Tarnopolski is also the founder of the Jurgenson International Competition for Young Composers (2001). As a member of jury he is a frequent guest of many international competitions for composers, such as Gaudeamus Music Week (Amsterdam), Witold Lutoslawski competition (Warsaw), ISCM World Music Days festival in Stuttgart, Goffredo Petrassi competition (Italy), Orpheus competition (Russia) and many others.

Tarnopolski's musical compositions have been awarded many prizes including the Dmitri Shostakovich Prize (Russia) and the Paul Hindemith Prize (Germany). Tarnopolski is a member of the Saxon Academy of Arts.

Oficial site http://www.tarnopolski.ru/en/