Yuri Kasparov
Yuri Kasparov (born 8 June 1955) is a Russian composer, music educator, and professor at the Moscow Conservatory. He was named Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation in 2007.
Kasparov was born in Moscow into an Armenian family and began studying music at the age of five. After completing music school, he entered the Moscow Power Engineering Institute at his parents’ insistence and graduated in 1978. He then worked as an engineer at the Central Research Institute of Automation and Hydraulics while studying at the Moscow Regional Music College, which he completed in two years, from 1978 to 1980.
From 1980 to 1984, Kasparov studied composition at the Moscow Conservatory, entering directly into its second year. He studied orchestration with Evgeny Makarov and composition with Mikhail Chulaki. He later undertook postgraduate study at the conservatory from 1989 to 1991 under Edison Denisov. Between 1985 and 1989, he was chief music editor at the Central Documentary Film Studio.
In 1990, he founded the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble and became its artistic director. The ensemble was described as Russia’s first permanent group devoted exclusively to contemporary music. Since 1992, Kasparov has served as deputy chairman of the executive committee of the International Association of Composers’ Organizations. He has also been a board member of the Moscow Union of Composers, an organizer of the Moscow Autumn International Music Festival, an organizer and leader of the Russian Association for Contemporary Music, and co-chair of the Russian section of the International Society for Contemporary Music.
Kasparov has taught orchestration at the Moscow Conservatory since 2005 and composition there since 2007. His composition students include Alexander Khubeev, Stanislav Makovsky, Elena Rykova, Andrei Besogonov, Maxim Babintsev, Tatyana Gerasimenok, and Farhad Bakhtiari. In 1993, at French Radio, he created his first interactive electroacoustic work, Chaconne, for bassoon, cello, and live electronics.
His works have been presented at contemporary-music festivals including Présences, Frankfurt Fest, Ensems, Pontino, the Contemporary Music Festival in Basel, Lerchenborg Music Days, Warsaw Autumn, Melos-Ethos, and the Tokyo Summer Festival. His music has been commissioned by Ensemble Modern, Radio France and the Institute for Musical Research, the Zurich New Music Days, the Feldkirch Festival, the Grand Théâtre de Tours, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, the Tours Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Accroche Note, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, the Core Ensemble, Ensemble Archaeus, and the French Flute Orchestra. His scores are published by Le Chant du Monde, Alphonse Leduc, and Gérard Billaudot.
Kasparov’s orchestral works include five symphonies: Guernica (1984), Kreutzer (1987), Ecclesiastes (1999), Notre Dame (2008), and Kafka (2021). His concertos include works for oboe, bassoon, cello, flute, and organ. Other compositions include the chamber symphonies Silence, Touch, Light and Shadow—Juxtaposition, Vanishing World, and Five Photographs of the Invisible; the mono-opera Nevermore, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”; and vocal settings of texts by Poe, Paul Verlaine, Jean de La Fontaine, and Nikolay Gumilev. He also wrote music for films and animated films.
His awards include first prize in the All-Union Composers’ Competition for Symphony No. 1, Guernica, in Moscow in 1985; first prize at the Guido d’Arezzo International Composers’ Competition for Ave Maria in 1989; and the Grand Prix at the Henri Dutilleux International Competition for Night Impressions, for bass-baritone and five performers to poems by Verlaine, in 1996. He received a commendation from the Pescara Academy of Music for Reminiscence in 1999, was appointed a Chevalier of the French Order of Arts and Letters in 2008, and received Kazakhstan’s “Excellence in Culture” distinction in 2015.