Ivan Sokolov

Pianist, composer, teacher

Lecturer at the Inter-disciplinary Department of musicology specialties Member of the Russian Composers’ Union (from 1987)

Curriculum Vitae:

Ivan Sokolov was born in Moscow . He grew up in a musical family as a child prodigy. After finishing in 1978 Gnesin Music College where he studied piano with Irina Naumova, he entered the Moscow Conservatory. There he studied piano with Lev Naumov, composition with N. Sidelnikov, orchestration with E. Denisov, and counterpoint with Y. Kholopov and K. Batashov. After completing his term of obligatory army service, he was engaged as a teacher-assistant to N. Sidelnikov’s composition class (1984–86). Some later he began teaching composition at the Moscow Conservatory music college, and from 1988 to 1994 was teaching orchestration and score reading at the Moscow Conservatory orchestration department. In 1987 he joined the Composers’ Union and in 1995 became a member of the Bellmanists’ Society in Cheboksary. From the very early years in his musical career already, he has been committed to contemporary music; his preferences in the piano repertoire and interpretation testify this, as well as his specific composer’s style. His unusual, sometimes paradoxical, interpretation of Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Mozart and Schumann aims at revealing new aspects in the composers’ work. Ivan Sokolov plays both music of Boulez, Crumb, Stockhausen, and of the Russian composers such as Korndorf, Prokofiev, Skryabin, Sidelnikov, Tarnopolsky and Ustvolskaya. As a composer Sokolov applies a wide spectrum of means. He is particularly drawn to instrumental theatre, conceptualism, minimalism and polystylism. In recent years, he has got fascinated by the idea of liberation from the chains of a certain stylistic canon: that found reflection in his piece for flute “A Bird in a Cage”, in his piano piece “About Life” and a composition for violin, called “Suddenly”.

Teaching:

From 1986 till 1994 I. Sokolov had been teaching composition and extemporizing at the Moscow Conservatory music college and the affiliated children’s music school. From 1988 till 1994 he was teaching at the Moscow Conservatory at the orchestration and score reading department, and from 2005 up today he is a staff member of the Inter-disciplinary Department for musicologists’ specialties. There he offers a major course called “Theory of musical content”. It is aimed at pianists, string players, musicologists and post graduate students from this and other countries. As a lecturer I. Sokolov demonstrates productiveness and up-to date level of education, contributing to the initiative and independence of thought of the students. At the Faculty of historic and contemporary performance I. Sokolov reads a minor course about piano music of the 20th and 21st centuries for chamber ensemble players. From 2006 he has also served as a lecturer at the Russian Gnesin Academy (as V. Tropp’s teacher-assistant at his special piano class).

Basic repertoire. Recitals...

Works:

I. Sokolov’s composer’s talent is acclaimed not only in Russia, but also abroad. He wrote a great many chamber music works, one opera, two musical plays, about 200 songs and romances, a lot of choral music alongside music for piano, for percussion ensemble, two quartets, etc.

Publications...

Discography...

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