Vladislav Shoot

Biography

Shoot studied composition with Nikolai Peiko at the Gnessin Music Institute (the present-day Russian Academy of Music) in Moscow, graduating in 1967. From 1967 to 1982 he worked as the music editor at the Sovetsky Kompozitor publishers in Moscow. In 1982, he turned to freelance composing, earning his living by writing film scores. In 1990, Shoot – together with a small group of Moscow composers headed by Edison Denisov – founded the Association for Contemporary Music, a revival of a post-Revolutionary avant-garde composers' association of the same name. In 1992 he came to Dartington Hall, England as a composer-in-residence, in which capacity he served until 1995, remaining a resident of the estate to this day. Shoot's music is published by M.P. Belaieff – Edition Peters (Frankfurt-am-Main)/Schott (Mainz). Individual works have also been published by Boosey & Hawkes and Hans Sikorski.

The next generation of Shoot's family continues its musical traditions. His son Eli Shoot is also a composer teaching at Tulane University, and his daughter Veronika (Nika Shoot) is a pianist.

Music

The works of Vladislav Shoot have met with much admiration in the West since the 1980s. Shoot prefers smaller ensembles up to the quantity level of a chamber orchestra which he ties into sound compositions or groups of overlapping sound layers. He retains serial processes, uses post-Romantic elements, and quotes composers of the past. Shoot allows the performers of his works a certain freedom of interpretation within the bounds of a controlled aleatoric technique.

His music has been performed at numerous venues and festivals throughout Europe, as well as in South Korea and the United States. The music written in the UK has been performed by leading British ensembles and orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and Sinfonia 21.

Orchestral

Chamber music

Choral

Vocal

Piano

Organ

Films scored

Discography