BRIEF STATEMENT ABOUT MY WORK

    I belong to the direction in Russian music which, independently of the composer’s style, usually turns to very serious subjects:  philosophical, religious, moral, problems of spiritual life of a person, one's relationship with the external world, the problem of the relationship between beauty and reality, as well as the relationship of the spiritual and the anti-spiritual.  All this means that most of my works were not written for fun and that then can in no way be classified as entertainment.  As much as possible, I strive to ensure that every one of my works contains a message to each listener and that my music leaves no one indifferent but arouses an emotional response in them. I even accept that sometimes my music arouses negative emotions - as long as it is not indifference.
     I compose various types of music:  the dramatic and lyric, the ecstatic and calm, the humorous and tragic.  Everything depends on the aim of the specific piece.  Some of my pieces are composed using contrasting material, the others (without contrasting material) emphasizing a single emotional state.  I strive to make my music have many interpretations rather that one meaning.  This difference of character produces a multi-layered complexity and a polyphony of texture in whatever instrumentation I use.
     Most of my pieces last from 20 to 40 minutes. A prolonged dynamic, a large culmination and an attempt to create monumentalism and sound color are typical of my music.  Often the form of a piece represents a dynamic wave or a set of such waves.  In my music, I employ different types of contemporary composing techniques; I  also attempt to synthesize elements of different styles and trends, sometimes opposite to each other.  I do this because I believe that our time is the time of synthesis and that all the treasures accumulated during the centuries of musical cultural existence should be used.  That is why my music reflects medieval chorale, elements of modern rock music, folk music and underground music.  It also  contains elements of romantic music, European vanguard music, and American minimalism.   I seek to use and work out all of these elements, however, in my own way.
     I work in various genre but mainly in symphonic and chamber music, using both traditional tendencies (for example:  Symphonies # 1, 2, 3 and 4, opera MR  ("Marina and Rainer"), brass-quintet and string trio) and nontraditional tendencies. In symphonic pieces, I prefer to use a large instrumentation that enables me to create an extended sound, rich in volume. In chamber music, I frequently employ nontraditional instrumentation (for example, Confessiones, Amoroso, Primitive Music, Movements, Let the Earth Bring Forth, Get Out!!!).  I repeatedly return with special interest to the genre of the instrumental theater, where the performers and even the instruments are the characters (Yes!!, “...si muove”, The Dance in Metal in Honour of John Cage, Merry Music for Very Nice People).  I also use the traits of an instrumental theater (dance and movements of the performers on stage or in the auditorium) in some of my chamber pieces (Confessiones, Primitive music, Mozart-variationen, Get Out!!!).  Sometimes I combine live and recorded sound   (Singing, Yarilo, Movements).  I like to use the performers in unconventional ways: instrumentalists as singers, singers as instrumental performers, the conductor, too, as an  instrumental performer (Yes!!, Victor, string Quartet, Welcome, Amoroso, Music for Owen Underhill and His Magnificent Eight).  Although I seek to solve a different problem in each new work, and not to repeat myself, there is, of course, inheritance   in some of my works (Prologue and Epilogue).  Other works represent a different approach as to the same musical material (Hymns I, II and III).  Some pieces are written in two versions, each  for a different instrumentation (Welcome! for chorus and for 6 performers, Lullaby as a version of Con Sordino).