Alexey Shmurak

Composers

Alexey Shmurak was born in 1986. He is a composer and sound artist based in Kyiv, Ukraine. After training as a pianist and graduating from the National Music Academy of Ukraine in music composition, Alexey started exploring various fields and practices: classical, contemporary classical, and experimental music composition and performance. Shmurak’s music explores genre borders, nostalgia, deconstruction, attention gaps, and interruptions. As a performer, he frequently employs voice, drums, winds, electronics, and surrounding space. As an educator, he makes lectures, workshops, lessons, and essays in the fields of critical listening, political and social aspects of music, borders of disciplines, and discourses.

Alexey had numerous performances and multimedia projects at Akademie der Künste Berlin, WDR Hall Köln, International Summer Courses for New Music Darmstadt, Muffatwerk Munich, Warsaw Philharmonic, Gogolfest Kyiv, Lviv Philharmonic.

Alexey was a resident of Plivka (2016-2018), an interdisciplinary experimental art space in Kyiv. He worked closely with the venue’s curators: Dima Kazakov, Lotsia publishing house co-founder, and Sasha Andrusyk, Ukho music agency co-founder. Since 2010 Alexey has been a long-time partner of the Goethe-Institut mission in Kyiv. With Goethe-Institut departments (in Tashkent and Munich) Alexey curated art laboratories “Intersection of Parallels” (2016-2018) researching interdisciplinarity.

Alexey has an ongoing collaboration with a Kyiv-based electroacoustic artist Oleh Shpudeiko aka Heinali specializing in modular synthesis. Their field of interests includes a reimagining of traditional and old music forms, as well as sound and audiovisual installations. Alexey’s and Oleh’s artworks are in the collections of the National Art Museum of Ukraine and the Museum of Odesa Modern Art.