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Andrey Gugnin
piano

Graduate of the P. I. Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory (class of Professor V. V. Gornostaeva). Winner of the J. Bachauer Piano Competition in Salt Lake City, winner of the S. Stancic Piano Competition in Zagreb and L. van Beethoven in Vienna. Winner of the 1st prize at the competition in Sydney. He has performed with the best orchestras in 30 countries, including Carnegie Hall (New York), Royal Festival Hall (London), Victoria Hall (Geneva), Musikverein Golden Hall (Vienna). The pianist's performances were broadcast on television and radio in Russia, Europe, Australia and the USA. A. Gugnin recorded discs for the labels Piano Classics, Delos, Steinway & Sons, Hyperion Records. The musician’s plans for the next season include a personal subscription to the Moscow State Philharmonic Theater with a program of all L. van Beethoven’s concerts, concerts with the Jerusalem Camerata, Jacksonville Symphony, Bellini Theater Orchestra (Catania), SASO, NPR, performances in Japan, Serbia, Croatia, Israel , Italy, Belgium, England, Portugal.

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Andrey Gugnin about music and life. Quotes from various interviews.

I really value the spontaneity of the process, I never know in advance how I will play. This is probably why the style sometimes sounds like, say, poetic, momentary or something like that.  From an interview with Vash Leisure magazine

 

In the end, there is only one indicator - are you interested at this moment? And it is no longer you who push the music ahead of you, but it seems to be dragging you by itself. You laid something right at the beginning, and she herself leads you. Once I managed to talk with Vladimir Sorokin. I love to read wildly, but writing is a completely incomprehensible activity for me, I could never write, I just don’t understand how you can write 30 pages of text. And I asked him what  important in writing books. And he answered: “The main thing is to find the intonation.” From an interview with Vash Leisure magazine

Once you've entered the right state, you don't need to think too much about how to press a key in order to achieve this or that sound. If you know where you are going, your hands do everything. You yourself become the instrument of music. And not music, not a piano is an instrument for you.  From an interview with Vash Leisure magazine

 

I think to compare  a very natural need, we compare something all the time. To be offended by the very fact of comparison -  means to be cut off from reality. Everyone who does this knows that someone will like their game, and someone will not like it, this is normal. At competitions, a number of people decide what they like more and what they like less. If it so happened that at some point the majority did not like your game -  So what, okay, it's not a tragedy. The main thing is not to take it to heart.  From an interview with Vash Leisure magazine

 

After all, we cannot ignore an obvious fact : when playing the piano, you must move your fingers from one key to another, purely mechanically. Sometimes it has to be done pretty quickly. From an interview with the newspaper "Ural Meridian"

 

What are notes? Badges on paper, nothing more. Music exists only at the moment of performance. And at this moment the personality of the musician is important. Sitting down at the instrument, one must be sincere, although ... it is impossible to deceive the public. Obviously, you need to somehow develop yourself, do completely different things: study other types of art, read books, watch movies. Your life experience affects the game, you can hear it during the performance. From an interview with the newspaper "Ural Meridian"

 

There are some compositions that are more interesting to play than to listen to. From an interview with the newspaper "Ural Meridian"

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With all my sympathy and respect for Western universities, I have a very vivid feeling of belonging to our culture, our performing traditions. To leave to study or live in Europe would mean changing this feeling, which I would not want. It's important for me to feel like I belong. And although I love to travel, but “at home” I feel only at home. From an interview with Musical Life magazine

 

I am not scared or upset by the mistakes that I make (something may not work out), because I know that I can and will grow. And this is probably the main thing. From an interview with PianoForum magazine

 

Usually my most inspired moments on the stage are associated with the experience of complex emotions, laid down, for example, in Medtner's Romantic Sonata. It is so multifaceted in terms of content, both intellectual and emotional, that literally in every measure my state changes, and this is not a thoughtless combination of emotions, but a kind of concentration, a compressed version of living a whole life. From an interview with PianoForum magazine

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