Artist description Alexander P. Manotskov (1972) is a multi-style composer from St.Petersburg , Russia . He collaborates with various ensembles and soloists in many different genres and occasionally performs with his own line-ups or as a sideman in other composers' projects. Manotskov often works with theatres and composes original scores for all sorts of visual performances, from traditional stage productions, to happenings, to street performances, etc.

Music Style Manotskov composes and performs virtually all sorts of music except for those very few he doesn't particularly like (such as commercial dance pop, cheesy minimalism, or helpless free improvisation). To create a special page for each style would have meant too much thinking of how to call and define these styles so everything has simply been divided into two categories: 1) Manotskov's Acoustic Projects (this page). This includes various pieces for solo instruments, ensembles, some vocal music, one of Manotskov's one-act operas called "the Feast During The Plague". 2) Manotskov's Electric Projects (see the link below), referring to all of his music that involves electric amplification and/or digital devices. Here most tracks are either film music or demos for a possible future album, or both.

Artist History Alexander P. Manotskov's first teacher of musical composition is the St.Petersburg composer and musicologist Abram G. Yusfin, with whom Manotskov studied for several years, first as a student at the Composers' Union regular workshop, then privately. Manotskov has worked as an "academic" composer for several years now, although his activities are not confined to the "classical" music, due to his very dense and multicultural experience in the past and his broad range of musical interests today. He started making music in 1990, in close creative collaboration with the so-very-legendary Lavrenty Mganga (check out his page as well!), and they played, guess what, art rock. Had cheap recording equipment been available at that moment, the group, called "The Wild Grass Orchestra", might have got stuck right there playing the music that had no chance to be played live anyways. Fortunately, Manotskov decided to do something more extrovert and started playing the electric bass (chosen for the fundamental reason of not wanting to deal with too many strings) with various experienced musicians, thus trying to learn by doing and to propose his musical ideas. So he played with the famous St.Petersburg drummer Alexander Yemelyanov, with whom they formed a stable rhythm section and played with many jazz, blues and improvisational soloists, filling most of the jazz bill of the now-defunct first in St.Peterburg "informal" music club TamTam. Since that time A.Yemelyanov's project Bastonada has participated in many festivals, most recent being "Sergey Kuryokhin International Festival" (SKIF). In this Bastonada incarnation Manotskov composes all the music, plays the keyboard and sings. During the long breaks in Bastonada activities Manotskov played with the following groups: Samkha (world music, electric bass), Music of Asia (Middle East, rubob), Guayo (Venezuelan salsa, double bass), Mbond Art (Central African sukus, electric bass), Basso Continuo (baroque music, cello), (V.Gayvoronsky Ensemble (contemporary music, cello), Novy Byt (Russian folk and folk-jazz, cello, piano, voice), Renaissance Stars (old European music, cello), So What (acid jazz, voice), Rare Aves (Manotskov's music, cello). Now he's also playing the percussion and singing with V. Gayvoronsky and Evelyn Petrova. He also plays cello and sings in the Ensemble RI (world music, ethno-jazz).Since 1994 Manotskov has been collaborating with theatres, composing for the "Formal Theatre", Interstudio, "Priyut Komedianta", Komissarzhevskaya Academic Theatre.

Location St Petersburg - Russia

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