Composer and pianist Igor Yakovenko belongs to a type of musician for whom there are no boundaries between classical and non-academic music, or between the roles of author and performer. For him there is also no boundary between creativity and exact sciences: choosing in his youth between music and technology, he first graduated from an aerospace university. His engineering education pushed Yakovenko to overcome the closed musical worlds: he studied at the Moscow Conservatory in the department of historical and contemporary instrumental performance, and also received training as an improviser at the Maimonides Academy under the guidance of the maestro of jazz performance, Igor Bril. Combining the exemplary classical school of piano and harpsichord playing with the skills of a jazz pianist, he is a versatile musician with an individual authorial style.
Yakovenko's recognizable playing is appreciated not only by listeners of his solo concerts, but also his performances as a member of the 21PM improv. group and the avant-jazz trio Aphonic. He has also taken part in a residency at Snape Maltings (UK), home of the world famous Aldeburgh Festival founded by Benjamin Britten.
His contrasting musical background has led Yakovenko to numerous projects: he has written the opera Guilty for the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater. He has released six albums on the FANCYMUSIC label, performed at leading art venues: the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the Jewish Museum, the State Center for Contemporary Art, the Stanislavsky Electric Theater, the Spiridonov House, and in academic halls such as the Zaryadye Concert Hall and the State Academic Chapel in St. Petersburg.
