KNAIFEL Alexander
Alexander Knaifel was born on November 28, 1943 in Tashkent to a family of musicians. His father, Aaron Knaifel was an excellent violinist and violin teacher. His mother, Musa Shapiro-Knaifel was a legendary teacher of music theory immensely loved by her every pupil in the Special School for gifted children by Leningrad Conservatoire. Alexander Knaifel graduated from the same school (under cello class of Emmanuel Fishman in 1961 and for the nex two years (1961–1963) he studied in Moscow Conservatoire under guidance of world famous Mstislav Rostropovich.
However after graduation from Moscow Conservatoire the mystic process of music creation captivated the young cellist entirely. He returned to Leningrad and entered Leningrad Conservatoire to the composition class of Boris Arapov. The talent was developing fast, already at 22 his opera ‘Canterville Ghost’ was staged at Opera theatre of St. Petersburg Conservatoire. Inspired by the success Alexander Knaifel strived actively for novelty in music, thus having gained the reputation of unrestrainable avant-garde composer with his audacious musical projects.
Since 1970th the new path, film music got the attention of the composer. He created soundtracks for more than 40 motion pictures and documentaries, closely working (10 of 40) with the prominent Soviet film director S. Aranovich.)
In 1979 at the VI Composers’ Congress Knaifel’s works were harshly criticized by almighty Tikhon Khrennikov, the central Soviet official in the field of music creation to the moment, and together with Gubaidullina, E. Denisov and some other colleagues he was blacklisted. The seven avant-garde composers, including Alexander Knaifel and above mentioned were named ‘khrennikov’s Seven’ and were banned from performances and other public activities.
Now Alexander Knaifel having transformed his creative genius through complexity of avant-garde and clarity of film music established an international name creating his unique music language, free of everything non-essential or irrelevant. His music immerses listeners to some kind of trance, emptying and cleansing the soul of sediments of ordinary life.
He is an author of more than 100 works where almost no conventional genres are found. His premieres are performed all around the globe at music festivals in London, Paris, Amsterdam, New York, Berlin, Salzburg, Koln, Maastricht, etc. For the frost time his monographic festival tool place in 1992 in Frankfurt am Maine. He was the first Russian composer awarded with the prestigious international DAAD prize.
Alexander Knaifel is on the list of such labels as Megadisc Classics, Chant du Monde, Teldec, ECM, his works were performed by BBC orchestra, Deutschlandfunk and WDR (Germany) and many others.
Compozitor SPb Publishing house is now in process of publishing the ‘Complete works by Alexander Knaifel’.
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