Vladimir Tarnopolski, composer (1955, Dnipro, Ukraine). Since 1973 until 2022 he studied and worked in Moscow, since April 2022 he lives in Munich.

Tarnopolski studied composition at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with Edison Denisov and Nikolai Sidelnikov and music theory with Yury Kholopov. His graduate work, the Concerto for Cello (1980) was selected by the prominent Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky for a series of concert programs, titled "From the History of Russian Music". Since then, works by Tarnopolski are regularly performed in Russia and abroad by numerous famous musicians, such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Reinbert de Leeuw, Valery Gergiev, Ingo Metzmacher, Vladimir Jurowski, Sylvain Cambreling, Alexander Lazarev, Kent Nagano, Vasily Sinaysky, Natalia Gutman, Yury Bashmet, Jens–Peter Maintz and many others.

Tarnopolski is a frequent guest in many Western contemporary music festivals, such as: Almeida Festival London, Beethovenfest Bonn, The Berliner Festwochen, California festival, Dresdner Tage für Neue Musik, Frankfurter Musikfest, Holland Festival, Hommage aux Russes Paris, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Klangspuren festival in Austria, La Biennale di Venezia, Make Music Together in Boston, Manca festival in Nice/Monaco, The Mannes festival in New York, Munchener Biennale, The Schleswig-Holstein Musikfest, Sonic Boom New York Festival, Tage für Neue Musik Zurich, Warsaw Autumn, Wien Modern, The World Music Days of the ISCM and many others.

Tarnopolski has written pieces on commission for some of the world's leading orchestras, among them Ensemble InterContemporain, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble of Soloists of the Bolshoi Theatre, Klangforum Wien, Munich Philharmonic orchestra, Musikfabrik, Rotterdam philharmonic orchestra, Schonberg Ensemble, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra and others. His stage works were premiered at the Munchener Biennale, Beethovenfest Bonn, Barbican Hall London, Rencontres Musicales d'Evian, Contemporary Dance Festival Netherlands, Bergen Festival and others.

Vladimir Tarnopolski is the author of several operas, many orchestral, chamber and vocal works (see below). His style is characterized by a powerful energy and a large-wave form structure, combined with a detailed, multi-layered texture in which the juxtapositions of sound and noise, harmony and timbre, as well as acoustic and electronic instruments are resolved. His works inspire philosophical and spiritual reflections, the author's political engagement is evident in them. Theatrical, ironic, grotesque and surreal elements are also often found in his pieces (operas “When Time Overflows” and “Beyond the Shadow”, “Redshift”, “Welt voll Irrsinn”, “Chevengur”, “Tabula Russia”, “Last Sunset”, “One Hundred Days of Solitude”, “Das alte Jahr vergangen ist:2022”, “Out of Step/Out of Time”, “Danse macabre”, “Ode to Hate” etc.)

Tarnopolski is one of the most active reformers of the musical life of Moscow in the post-Soviet period. He was one of the initiators of ACM, the Association of Contemporary Music in Moscow (1989), which represented a group of composers, who reacted against the official Soviet cultural philosophy of "socialist realism". In 1993 he founded the Centre for Contemporary Music, the first of its kind in Russia, and the Studio for New Music Ensemble.

In 1994 Tarnopolski founded the Moscow Forum, an annual International Festival of Contemporary Music, the main focus of which is to overcome self-isolation and to integrate Russian music into the European and global cultural context. The Moscow Forum is the only festival in Russia that aims not only to reveal the progressive development of musical art, but also to reveal its political discourse. His long-term projects "Red Wheel. The Unknown Russian Music of the XX century", "Russia-Germany. Chapters of the XX Century Music History", "Freedom of Sound!", "Europe through the eyes of Russians. Russia through the eyes of Europeans", “Ghost of the Future” and others have obtained recognition in Russia and abroad.

For many years Tarnopolski has carried out a large-scale series of concerts of West-European music in Russia. Several European composers have been his guests in Moscow, presenting their pieces at the concerts and giving workshops for young composers at the Conservatory. Tarnopolski conducted the German, French, Italian, Austrian, the Netherlands Festivals in Moscow, which have become the important musical events in Russia.

Since 1992 until February 2022 Tarnopolski was a professor of composition at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. In 2003, he founded the Department of Contemporary Music and became its first head. Among his students are Hana Ajiashvily, Olga Bochikhina, Mikhail Bouzine, Georgy Dorokhov, Orkhan Gashimov, Sebastian Elikowski-Winkler, Alexandra Filonenko, Vladimir Gorlinsky, Jamilia Jazylbekova, Nikolai Khrust, Balasagyn Musaev, Roman Parkhomenko, Pavel Polyakov, Felix Profos, Olga Raeva, Kirill Shirokov, Anton Sofronov, Madeline Styskal, Ramazan Yunusiov and many others. He has held numerous composition seminars in Russia, Austria, France, Germany, Great Britten, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, USA and other countries, including such universities as Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and others. Vladimir Tarnopolski is an Honorary Professor at the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan. He has been the first Russian composer who was invited as a docent to the Darmstadt International Courses for New Music (2010).

Tarnopolski is also the founder of the Jurgenson International Competition for Young Composers (since 2001) and Tchaikovsky Conservatory International Competition for Young Composers (since 2018). As a member of jury he is a frequent guest of many international competitions for composers, such as ISCM World Music Days festival, Gaudeamus Music Week (Amsterdam), Orpheus Radio competition (Russia), Witold Lutoslawski competition (Warsaw), Goffredo Petrassi competition (Italy), the International Piano Competition of Orleans (France), The Rivers Awards International Composition Competition (Shanghai), Gesualdo Reloaded (Italy), several competitions in the USA and many others.

Tarnopolski's musical compositions have been awarded many prizes including the Dmitri Shostakovich Prize (Russia), the Paul Hindemith Prize (Germany), International Rostrum of Composers award (2001), The Prize of the Christoph and Stephan Kaske Foundation (2023) etc. As composer-in-residence, he has been invited to major institutions of contemporary art and science, among them is Civitella Ranieri (Italy), and the Berlin Institute for Advanced Studies (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin). Tarnopolski is currently a visiting professor at the Hochschule Munich. He is a member of the Saxon Academy of Arts (since 2011).

Main compositions. Operas: “When Time overflows” (1999); “A True Story About Cinderella” (for children, 2003); “Beyond the Shadows” (after Plato 2006). Solo and orchestra/ ensemble/choir: Concerto for Cello (1980); “Psalmus poenitentialis”, responsory for Violin, choir and organ (1986); “Impression-Expression II” for piano and ensemble (1989/1996); “…The Wind of Unspoken Words” for cello and orchestra (1996). Orchestral: “The Breath of the Exhausted Time” (1994); “Feux follets” (2003); “Redshift” (2013); “Tabula Russia” (2015); “Be@thoven – Invocation” (2017); “Danse macabre” (2023).Voice and ensemble: “Scenes from the Real Life” for soprano, flute, French horn and piano on verses by Ernst Jandl (1995); “Chevengur” for mezzo soprano and ensemble on texts by Andrey Platonov (2001); “Study of a Girl Reading Pavese” for soprano and ensemble (2015). Large ensemble: “Jesus, Your Deep Wounds”, Instrumental Passion after Bach Chorale (1987); “Cassandra” (1991); “World Full of Madness” for reciting wind players on verses by Kurt Schwitters (1993); “Foucault's Pendulum” (2004); “Eastanbul” (2008); “Over Drive” (2019); “Das alte Jahr vergangen ist: 2022”. Variations on a Bach chorale (2022). Numerous chamber and solo pieces.

External links

Tarnopolski, Vladimir. by Jorn Peter Hiekel. Metzler Komponisten Lexikon, herausgegeben von Horst Weber, 2003
Interview Anastassija Boutsko

Hannes Oberrauter. Klang gegen Rhythmus. Die Entwicklung von Texturen in Vladimir Tarnopolskis Foucault’s Pendulum

Philosophie-Oper im Schattenreich, Westdeutsche Zeitung

The Culturology Of Vladimir Tarnopolski. by Valeria Tsenova. Published in: Underground Music from the Former USSR, ed. by V. Tsenova

Vladimir Tarnopolsky. The Concepts Of Sound And Word. By Anastasia Tretiakova. Lambert Academic Publishing, 2003

Четверть века в фарватере Новой музыки, или Музыка ХХI века — взгляд изнутри // Интервью с А. Амраховой. Журнал Общества теории музыки, 2019/1 (25)

Реестр наших заблуждений // Беседа с А. Амраховой. Журнал Общества теории музыки №20, 2017–4
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Владимир Тарнопольский: восхождение к зрелости. С. Савенко // В сб.: «Музыка России», вып. 1, 2004

В.Г. Тарнопольский после «Кассандры». C. Савенко // Harmony: международный музыкальный культурологический журнал, 3/56, 2013
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updated on May 20, 2023