Andrey Vinogradov (Russian hurdy-gurdy tunes)

Born in 1959 in Ekaterinburg (Northern Ural), Andrey Vinogradov has studied and been exposed to a variety of musical genres, everything from classical jazz to jazz-rock. He has now settled down in folky niche, where he creates his classic but unique blend of sounds. He graduated with highest honors from the Moscow Gnessin Music College and completed his education at Gnessin Academy of Music. Later, as part of well-known Russian jazz-rock group The Arsenal, directed by revered saxophonist Alexei Kozlov, he recorded two LPs, The Second Wind and Pulse 3, which were later released on the CDs Time-scorched III and Time-scorched IV (1997-1998). Ever since his youth, Andrey's goal has been to create innovative unions between the most diverse of musical genres by combining elements of classical, jazz and folk music. In 1996 he composed a series of songs to the verses of Russian modernist poets Soloviov, Blok, Voloshin, and Akhmatova among others. The result was a CD entitled Dryad's Songs featuring the vocals of Galina Lipina and Ivan Smirnov's guitar playing. Since Andrey became interested in Russian traditional folklore, he has restored a lot of unique recordings of anonymous rustic musicians. The immersion into the depths of the Russian traditional music culture inspired him for an attempt to blend the authentic folklore samples into keyboard-driven electronic-based ambient textures in the Sokol project. In the Iliya Murometz project Andrey combines old Russian tunes into neo-traditional compositions, drawing new life from ancient tones. Here he appears both as an arranger and performer of Russian traditional folk tunes, playing rylia (Russian hurdy-gurdy traditionally used by strolling beggars). In 2003 Ethnomirages project was created. It is penetrated with various musical intonations: Arabian, Turkish, Tuvinian as well as Serbian, Celtic and Armenian threaded into modern ethno-techno tissue. Andrey's latest project - several preludes for piano & strings entitled Daylight Breath - was dedicated to his Scandinavian journey in 2005. The music is both fascinating and soothing.