Arkady Shilkloper / Russia

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The Magic Of The Wind is the programme presented during the festival by the outstanding Russian artist Arkady Shilkloper.

Famous the world over, he started playing wind instruments when he was just six years old. He studied at the Military Music College in Moscow and the Gnessin State Musical College, and worked at the Bolshoi Theatre and the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also been a member of numerous jazz and ethno- jazz ensembles, including Three O, the acclaimed Moscow Art Trio (Shilkloper, Starostin & Alperin), Pago Libre, Vienna Art Orchestra, and Mauve.

During his concerts in 1998, Shilkloper started playing alphorn, one of the least frequently used instruments in improvised music. He remains one of very few jazz musicians playing the instrument. He has participated in the recording of around eighty albums, both his own projects and appearing as a guest. They include Mikhail Alperin’s acclaimed albums recorded for ECM. Shilkloper recorded his first solo album, “Hornology”, in 1996. In 2013 his “Duo For One”, recorded for Russian Radio, received the main prize in the Svetozár Stračina Competition for best folk recording. Jeffrey Agrell, associate professor of horn at the University of Iowa, says about Shilkloper, “I think maybe nobody ever told him ‘Jazz playing on horn is very difficult, and probably not natural’ or perhaps the phrase does not translate into Russian.” This statement stresses how difficult Shilkloper’s task is, even according to experts in the instrument. We will discover how successful he is at conquering these obstacles during the Kraków festival.
 

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The concert took place in 2015.