Victor Kissine
“Silence does not stop the music. It's part of the music. It's the flipside of music. Sound without silence wouldn't exist."
Russian composer Victor Kissine was born in St Petersburg in 1953 and graduated from that city’s Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, where he later obtained a PhD in musicology. He has lived in Belgium since 1990 and is a professor of music analysis and orchestration at the Royal Conservatory of Mons, and also teaches at the INSAS, a graduate school in Brussels for film, theatre and broadcasting arts.
US conductor Michael Tilson Thomas has described Kissine’s work as "inhabit[ing] this interesting world between Alfred Schnittke and Morton Feldman" and other commentators have emphasised the hyper-refinement of a music that “creates the most fantastic shimmers and fleeting effects”. [...]
“Silence does not stop the music. It's part of the music. It's the flipside of music. Sound without silence wouldn't exist."
Russian composer Victor Kissine was born in St Petersburg in 1953 and graduated from that city’s Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, where he later obtained a PhD in musicology. He has lived in Belgium since 1990 and is a professor of music analysis and orchestration at the Royal Conservatory of Mons, and also teaches at the INSAS, a graduate school in Brussels for film, theatre and broadcasting arts.
US conductor Michael Tilson Thomas has described Kissine’s work as "inhabit[ing] this interesting world between Alfred Schnittke and Morton Feldman" and other commentators have emphasised the hyper-refinement of a music that “creates the most fantastic shimmers and fleeting effects”. Kissine’s catalogue includes works for symphony orchestra and concertos, chamber music for soloists and ensembles, vocal and choral works, two operas and ballets, as well as numerous film scores.
Victor Kissine has collaborated with Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica orchestra since 2001. That collaboration led to Kissine’s first ECM New Series project: a luminous orchestration of Schubert’s final string quartet, the monumental work in G major, D887. In 2011, the recording of his second Piano Trio, Zerkalo (Mirror) – paired with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio – received the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. In 2013 ECM marked Kissine’s 60th birthday with an album devoted to his music; Between Two Waves presents premiere recordings of three recent works performed by their dedicatees, Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica prominent among them.
The recipient of many international awards and prizes, Victor Kissine was elected to the Royal Academy of Belgium in 2008.
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