Vladislav Shoot

Vladislav Shoot was born in Vosnesensk (USSR) in 1941. He studied composition with Nikolai Peiko at the Gnessin Institute of Music in Moscow (now the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music), where he graduated in 1967. He subsequently worked as an editor for the music publishers “Sovetski Kompozitor”. After 1982 he was a free-lance composer, earning a living primarily by writing music for films. In the 1970s, despite massive political pressure and bans on performances of his music, Shoot did much to promote Soviet avant-garde music, and in 1990 was one of the co-founders of the Association of Contemporary Music (ASM). He was invited to be composer in residence at Dartington Hall, England in 1992, where he lives to this day.
 
Shoot differs from his fellow composers in that he is an advocate of “pure” music. He always starts out from a sound, and not from literature or even painting. His music is a synthesis of various different elements which include stylistic quotations and allusions. However, the most obvious influence is the music of Alban Berg: “I love the sort of music in which, in addition to beauty and perfection, there is a kind of irrational door, a ‘black hole’, a place of chaos and of mourning. The less this hole reveals itself, the better. But it must be there somewhere.” (V. Shoot)
 
Vladislav Shoot’s music has been performed at numerous festivals, including “Moscow Autumn”, “Almeida Festival” (London), Schleswig-Holstein Musik-Festival, “Wien modern”, “Présences” (Paris) and “Ars Musica” (Brussels). It has also been performed in America, Korea and in many European countries.
 
He has been commissioned to write works for the BBC Symphony Orchestra (High-Cross Symphony, 1998), the Philharmonia Orchestra, Radio France and various festivals, organizations and ensembles. Shoot’s music has been recorded by radio stations in Berlin, Budapest, Cologne, London, Moscow and Paris, and is now available on a number of CDs.