Igor Mashukov

Through the music, I want to show the power of our Ural mythology

Location



Born in Perm. Graduated from the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music, specialty «Composition». Member of the Union of Composers of Russia. Heads the Perm regional branch of the Union of Composers of Russia. Artistic Director of the International Festival of Contemporary Music Sound 59.

Quotes

  • The worthier a person is, the more kindness there is in him.
  • In the center of my life is music, the rest is background outlines.
  • A composer must have a biological need to compose music. This is an indispensable condition.
  • It happens that a melody is dreamed, but God forbid you to remember it and begin to play. Let the illusion remain that you were a genius in a dream.

My story

I was born in a musical family, and, apparently, was indifferent to music from the beginning. I remember myself, still in an infant bed, listening to the ringing opening to the «Music Box». I listened, felt blissful and thought: what happiness is to hear these sounds...

My parents also had a radio gramophone with a lot of vinyl records, I loved to watch them, I was fascinated by their very rotation. Mom said that I could find any song, to which they were stunned: I didn't know how to read. My father was an amazingly musical man, the owner of a trophy accordion. His friend Rudolph played, and I as a little boy listened for hours, enchanted.

When I was nine years old, I heard the march of Chernomor in a musical literature class, and this music surprised and inspired me so much that I came home and composed my «March of Chernomor». I showed it to Mikhail Aleksandrovich Kadochnikov, my accordion teacher. He reacted favorably, and since then I have written various naive and strange pieces. First for the accordion, then for the piano.

My first teacher in composition was the professor, the head of the department of the composition of the Gnessins institute, Nikolai Ivanovich Peiko. He himself was a student of the great Russian composer Myaskovsky. The lessons were held at Nikolai Ivanovich's house, the windows of the apartment overlooked Red Square, and St. Basil's Cathedral was visible, and that impressed the provincial students greatly. My lesson started at 10 o'clock, then someone else came, we listened to each other, then Nikolai Ivanovich invited us to have dinner (he was a hospitable person), and again the lessons. So I studied for five years.

The very feeling that such a significant composer and person tinkers at you for so much time gives a lot not only in terms of development, but you also touch on the great tradition of Russian musical culture. For a young composer, this is the most important thing: that you are not someone without kith or kin, but a continuer of the work of your predecessors.

A year after graduation, I studied in the assistant internship, and then quit, because Nikolai Ivanovich became ill, and I did not want to graduate with someone else. I lived in Moscow for several years, and in 1993 I returned to Perm: I came to branch out the Union of Composers together with my friends Nikita Shirokov, Igor Anufriev, Viktor Pantus, and others.

The Union of Composers is a public organization. The main task is to create projects together and legitimately interact with the leaders of the region, city, country, that is, to promote the music created by our composers.

The main project since 2005 is the International Festival of Contemporary Music Sound 59. I came up with it, and all my friends and colleagues supported the idea. Modern academic music is one that develops the high traditions of the national musical culture. This is not a mass culture and not an author's song, not jazz and not folklore. We have concerts where we show other genres, but the main line is the performance of the modern authors' compositions which continue the traditions of high music in some form.

It's not about the language used by the composer, the fact is that there is talented music, and there is not talented one. But we cannot say which music is better, none of us is the Lord God. My task as a leader of the festival is to find the space in which it will sound, and listeners interested in this music. There is music that gathers thousands, and there is music that attracts fifty people. But this doesn't mean that the latter is less significant. My task is only to create conditions for its performance.

If you are talented, you can write in any language. But who will say about himself — I am ungifted? Though you are the organizer of the festival, you are a mortal man. As a person and a composer, you should do what you think is right, but as an organizer and leader, you shouldn't filter. If the author wrote it, then your task is to perform it. You can not monopolize the knowledge of what kind of music should be on earth.

I teach composition in Music college. I think that composition is vital for a modern person because it makes him different — more creative, flexible and inventive. This is a very abstract and complex activity. Now we, in collaboration with the Pedagogical University, decided to conduct a study: what happens to a person when he is engaged in composition? Does he change? If we collect the data, we will be able to talk not only about aesthetic but also about personal development of a person through musical writing.

In 2017, in Perm Music College, we created the Ensemble of Modern Music Green Sound. One of the tasks of the ensemble is to perform the music of young composers of the Kama region. We conduct master classes for young authors. We help them learn how to write music for flute, violin, cello, piano, electronics, as well as for other items that can be used in music. For example, for a saw, or a Tibetan bowl, or unique, designed tools. In this regard, I am inspired by the experience of the Soviet avant-garde of the 1920s, all these chairtoons, mop-ups, shock scores, etc., which were made through poverty for the breadth and richness of spirit.

For me, a significant event was the acquaintance in 1990 with Yevgeny Alekseevich Panfilov. He called me and offered to write a ballet dedicated to the works of Anna Akhmatova. I remember that I was 45 minutes late for the meeting, but he waited for me... I haven't already finished the first ballet, as Panfilov ordered me «The Men And The Women», then «Sergey Yesenin». We did not have time to finish the last one since Panfilov passed away tragically. But I continue to collaborate with his theater. With the artistic director of the theater Sergey Rainik in 2016, we made a reconstruction of the ballet «Requiem for Anna». In recent years we have been working on a triad of ballets based on the tales of Bazhov: we have already shown the «The Great Snake» and «Beloved Name». This is the oldest layer of Finno-Ugric mythology. The lower world is the world of the snake, the middle world is the world of people, and the upper world is the world of sacred elk, birds and the souls of people. Now I am composing music for the third ballet of the Bazhov triad. This is my favorite child. I want to show the power of our Ural mythology.