Leading balalaika player Andrey Gorbachov to give concert in Yerevan

YEREVAN, MAY 15, ARMENPRESS. Within the framework of International Music Festival "National Museum", balalaika player from Russia Andrey Gorbachov will give a concert in Yerevan on May 16. As reports "Armenpress" at the course of the press conference held on May 15, balalaika player Andrey Gorbachov stated that Armenia and Russia have always been linked together with cultural ties and the upcoming concert is to prove that.

The famous balalaika player underscored: "It's a great honor for us to participate in the festival, within the framework of which renowned musicians have introduced their works. The Russian musical instrument will be represented in the festival for the first time." This year's festival will be dedicated to Edward Mirzoyan's memory.

Piano player Natalya Shatokhina will also participate in the concert. Among other things Natalya Shatokhina expressed her gratitude to the organizers for the invitation to take part in the upcoming concert.

Andrey Alexandrovich Gorbachev is doubtlessly the leading balalaika player in Russia and in the world at the present. In 1992 he won the Grand-Prix of the greatest and most prominent competition for the folk-string instruments in the world “Kubok Severa” (“Cup of the North”), which took place in Cherepovets, Vologodskaja region in Russia. One year later A.A. Gorbachov became a first price winner of the international V.V.Andreeva competition (Tver, Russia).

A.A. Gorbachev is considered as one of the leading schoolmasters for balalaika. Since 1997 he has worked as a teacher for the S.V.Rachmaninov Institute of Music in Tambov. From 2000 until now he has been teaching in Russia's Gnesinych Akademy of Music in Moskow, presumed to be the best Music Academy in whole Russia. In 2004 he took here over the lead of the folk-string instruments department and few years later were assigned the highly honourable title of Professor.

A number of students have been taught by A.A. Gorbachev, seven of them became winner of foremost music competitions in Russia as well as in other countries. The list of his students can be seen under www. andreygorbachev.com

A.A. Gorbachev is author of ten books of music, as well as writer of more than thirty articles published in professional journals in the last years.

A.A. Gorbachev developed and introduced the new kinds of techniques of playing balalaika, establishing therewith a new epoch for balalaika. He implemented new techniques of balalaika-playing; some of techniques were demonstrated by him for the very first time in music history, as well as presented a new and modern way of balalaika-sound. He is in a constant and close cooperation with a number of composers. The composers, as Sergey Slonimsky, Mikhail Tzayger(USA), Mikhail Bronner, Efrem Podgaytz, Kirill Volkov, Anatoly Kusyakov, Alexander Tsygankov, Evgeny Derbenko, Alexandr Rogachev and other wrote and dedicated their works for A.A. Gorbachev. A.A. Gorbachev premiered seventeen compositions for balalaika, making thereby a big contribution to the balalaika music repertoire.

In the last fifteen years A.A. Gorbachev has performed more than one thousand concerts in the whole world. He played as a soloist on the stages of Russia, Great Britain (here he played for the queen Elisabeth II), Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Ukraine, Poland, Portugal, Hungary, Turkey and Japan.