Archived · Jazz and Beyond · Jazz · 3 min read
Arkady Shilkloper's High Five
Arkady Shilkloper's High Five Moscow-born French horn and alphorn virtuoso Arkady Shilkloper was invited to open this year's Sydney Festival. This is…
This date is the archive capture date; the original publication date was unavailable.
Historical article recovered from a Wayback capture dated 2018-02-24.
Moscow-born French horn and alphorn virtuoso Arkady Shilkloper was invited to open this year’s Sydney Festival. This is the second invitation to play at our Festival.
Educated as a classical musician with a long history of paying with the best symphonic orchestras, Arkady is always looking for new horizons - jazz, world music, experimental…
He
“[goes] places that horn players aren’t supposed to go without a net, map, seatbelt, crash helmet, overhead air support and a note from their mothers”
(Jeffrey Agrell, The University of Iowa).
Now Arkady resides “between Moscow and Berlin”, plays up to 100 concerts a year, travels all over the world, teaches, creates new music, records new CDs (ECM).
His 2002 CD (with his Mauve Trio) «Mauve» (Quinton) was awarded the prestigious Hans Koller Prize of Austria as the «CD Of The Year».
1988 - Miles Davis in Warsaw (“Jazz Jamboree”, Warsaw, Poland)
Unbelievable charisma, totally absorbs you from the first sounds and enshrouds you with it’s mighty energy!
1996 - “Tower of Power” (North See Jazz Festival, Haag, Holland)
What a stunning drive and rhythmic arrangement! This music forces you to move!
1998 - “YES” in Bayreuth (Bayreuth, Germany)
2001 - “YES” with a symphony orchestra in Glasgow (Glasgow, Scotland)
This is a group that I have a special bond with! I am a long-time fan of Yes! Yes broke all possible boundaries of traditional rock sound and a created unique musical language as complex and expressive as the language of classical music. The highest level of their mastery and musicianship, their imagination, youthful energy, unexpected rhythmic, harmonic and compositional solutions surprises, amazes and inspires listeners towards their own musical adventures. Later I even created a full program with a symphony orchestra - “Tribute to YES” dedicated to this group. In this program I did not try to copy or imitate Yes. Rather, it is more of my personal feeling, understanding, and the experience of navigating through this music.
2005 - Hermeto Pascoal Band (Nijmegen, Holland)
From my interview soon after this concert:
Q:
What was the most memorable musical experience in recent times?
A:
I think it was the concert of Brazilian composer Hermeto Pascoal. Some time ago I was at the festival in Holland, not performing, just listening to one of the concerts. During the break the musical director introduced me to Pascoal, we spoke a bit, and he immediately asked me to go and play with his band on stage. Unfortunately I did not have my instrument with me. I regret this, because to play on one stage with Hermeto Pascoal would be a great honour for me. I was just sitting in the front row and listening - it was a revelation. His band - it is not a just randomly assembled group of people, these musicians think together, feel each other and live a common life for many years and you can hear it! I was amazed by the contrast between the total freedom in their playing and its very strict discipline. This is what they said about their daily routine - “rehearsals every day from nine ‘til three, except for the days when one of us died, or when we are on a tour”. This is the commitment to the ensemble!
