Victor Ekimovsky

Victor Ekimovsky attended the Moscow Gnessin Music School, and subsequently studied composition with A. Khachaturian and musicology with K. Rosenschild at the Gnessin Institute. He also gained a doctorate at the Leningrad Conservatory for a thesis entitled Olivier Messiaen. Life and Works. (Moscow, 1987).
 
Ekimovsky’s music has created a stir among composers in Moscow since the 1970s on account of its unusual imaginative power, its inventive structural ideas and innovative instrumental writing. Ekimovsky, unlike other contemporary Russian composers, has continued to be a faithful adherent of “New Music” and has not succumbed to the temptations of the “post-modern” style. His works employ the whole arsenal of post-war avant-garde techniques – from dodecaphony to instrumental theatre. The principal characteristic of his works is their unique quality – none of them bears a resemblance to any other. They are all based on or have a specific and frequently surprising idea or ensemble, e.g. Balletto for a conductor and variable ensemble (1974), The Trumpets of Jericho for 30 brass instruments (1977) or Doppler-Effect for 100 performers, to be performed outdoors (1997).
 
Ekimovsky has written about 100 compositions. The works for orchestra include Lyrical Digressions (1971), Sublimations (1971), Symphonic Dances (piano concerto, 1993), Attalea princeps (violin concerto, 2000), Siamesisches Konzert (2005), The Scarlet Flower (2008); for smaller ensembles Kammervariationen (1974), Cantus figuralis (1980), Mandala (1983), The Mirror of Avicenna (1995), Graffiti (1998) and Remake (2004); for piano Farewell (1980), Sonata con Marcia funebre (1981), Mondscheinsonate (1993), Komposition 43 (1986) and Vers libre (for 2 pianos, 1999); for percussion The Assumption (1989) and 27 Destructions (1995); and for small ensembles Stanzas (1984) and Up in the Hunting Dogs (1986). Ekimovsky does not assign opus numbers to his works, preferring to call them “Composition” No. ...
 
In addition to being a composer, Ekimovsky has also worked as a musicologist, editor and impresario. Since 1996, when he succeeded Edison Denisov, he has been president of the Association for Contemporary Music (ASM). And he has written a highly unusual Automonographie (Moscow, 2008), which, like Rimsky- Korsakov’s famous “Chronicle of My Musical Life”, will be an important source for music historians about music in Moscow during the last third of the 20^th century.
 
Many of Ekimovsky’s works have been commissioned by well-known performers and ensembles (Ensemble Modern, the Jean-Marie Londeix saxophone ensemble, Petja Kaufman, Harry Sparnaay) and have been performed at noted international festivals (Wien Modern, Warschauer Herbst, Zagreb Biennale, Almeida London, Alternativa Moskau).