Alexei Shmitov

Alexey Shmitov was born in Moscow in 1957. In 1982 he graduated from the Moscow Conservatory (piano class of Tatiana Nikolayeva and organ class of Leonid Roizman / Леонид Ройзман), subsequently undertaking a trainee assistantship at the conservatory under the supervision of Leonid Roizman. On several occasions he has attended masterclasses of such leading European organists as Leo Krämer, Ludger Lohmann and Harald Vogel among others. In the Soviet period he was the country’s first organist to become a prize-winner at an international competition (Dom zu Speyer, West Germany, 1987). Alexey Shmitov gives concerts at the Great and Small Halls of the Moscow Conservatory, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, the Svetlanov Hall Of The Moscow International House Of Music, the Grand Hall of the St Petersburg Philharmonia, the St Petersburg State Capella and in Kaliningrad, the Volga Region, Siberia and the Urals. The musician frequently tours to Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Bulgaria, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, Central Asia and Transcaucasia. Alexey Shmitov’s repertoire encompasses works by Bach, the early and late Baroque, Classicism, French and German Romantic music, Russian classical music and music of the 20th and 21st centuries. The musician has collaborated with the conductors Vladimir Jurowski, Mikhail Pletnev, Arkady Feldman, Vladislav Chernushenko, Saulius Sondeckis, Galina Koltsova, Vladimir Begletsov and Lyudmila Litsova. Together with the cellist Alexander Zagorinsky he has recorded seven CDs, including monograph discs of Rachmaninoff, Denisov and Tansman and sonatas by Franck and Debussy. Other recordings by the organist include Widor’s Sixth and Ninth Symphonies, all of Schumann’s opuses for organ, Bach’s organ fantasias, music from Russian organ salons, Russian vocal religious music and the disc Ave Maria. Alexey Shmitov is a senior assistant professor at the Organ and Harpsichord Division at the Moscow Conservatory. In 2000–2005 he was a professor of organ and harpsichord studies at the High Institute of Music and Theatre in Damascus. On several occasions he has been a jury member at various All-Russian and international competitions. Since 2008 he has been a member of the Union Of Composers Of Russia. His works include opuses in the cantata and oratorio genre, for chamber orchestra and vocal and organ compositions.