Igor Yakovenko “Shines”-piano concert
Saturday 4. April at 19:00 - 21:00
Igor Yakovenko “Shines”-piano concert, Bar
Composer and pianist Igor Yakovenko, one of the most original pianists in Eastern Europe, presents his new work Shines.
At the core of Shines lies the idea of Slavic jazz. This music places a strong emphasis on melody and harmony and features carefully thought-out compositional forms, inheriting its mode of thinking from the academic tradition. An inner psychological depth is also essential to this music: the pieces always retain a tension that holds the listener until the very last bar.
Igor’s life path is the story of a person who consistently followed his dream. Having received his first degree at an Aerospace University, he nevertheless never parted with the piano, which had fascinated him since early childhood. Soon Yakovenko enrolled in Moscow Conservatory and later continued his studies in jazz under the guidance of Igor Bril—one of the most important jazz pianists of the former Soviet Union.
Such contrasting experience and an unconventional biography gives his music a unique character. Yakovenko’s work is always marked by precision of thought, a synthesis of academic melodicism and virtuoso command of jazz rhythm, and a sense of broad inner freedom. These qualities are evident both in his solo releases and in albums recorded with his own trio, as well as in large-scale compositional projects such as the opera Guilty.
Yakovenko’s distinctive path as a musician and composer is vividly reflected in False Sonatas, written during a composer-in-residence stay at the Britten House in Aldeburgh in February 2020. In form, it is almost an academic cycle that at certain moments bursts into playful jazz intonations. A different character defines the album Promenade, in which Yakovenko reinterprets one of the most frequently performed piano works in the world—Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition—in a free, improvisational manner, without destroying the original concept of the great music but, on the contrary, enriching it with new colors.
The new programme Shines brings together the finest examples of Igor’s compositional work from recent years and reveals their depth anew in the context of live improvisation.
Shines is a brilliant example of contemporary piano music: profound and richly colored.
Igor Yakovenko “Shines”-piano concert • Ulica Maršala Tita, 85000 Bar, Bar, Montenegro
