Yuri Krasavin

Yuri Krasavin was born in Kharkov. Starting as student at the Krasnodarsky music school, he continued his studies at the Rimsky-Korsakov music school in Leningrad, class of Professor Galina Ustvolskaya. After graduating from the Leningrad Conservatoire (1986, class of Professor Alexander Mnatsakanyan), he taught music at a children’s music school in the Leningrad Oblast.

He started composing music in 1970. His works include the audio-video composition Horizontal Country; Sonata with Shadow for Two Pianos; Dedication to Cage (music to be played simultaneously in seven cities in the hour the composer was born on the day of his 70th anniversary, 1982); Gloria (a composition for seven instruments  dedicated to the Millennium of the Baptism of Russia, 1988); the ballet Magrittomania (choreographer Yury Posokhov, San Francisco Ballet, 2000; the Bolshoi Theatre, 2004); Novgorod Concerto for piano four-hands (2002); concerto for violin and cello with orchestra Seven Stop-Overs in Southeast Asia (2003, premiered in Berlin), Pechorin. Suite for symphonic orchestra (on commission from the Bolshoi Theatre to Bicentennial celebrations of the birth of Mikhail Lermontov, 2014).

Among his compositions there are also listed four pianoforte sonatas, big orchestra and chamber ensemble pieces, pianoforte pieces, children’s including, and drama and film music. Filmography: The Priest Had a Dog… and I’m bored, demon (1993); Convoy PQ-17 (2004); Gentlemen of the Jury (2005); The Demons and A Hero of Our Time (2006); With Pen and Sword and Varvara’s Weddings (2007); Isayev and The Tzar (2009); The Brest Fortress (2010); and Quietly Flows the Don (2015).

In 1999, Yuri Krasavin was awarded the Prokofiev International Composers Contest prize.