Album Notes

Violinist/composer/arranger Alexei Aigui began as a rock musician in alternative rock groups (Do Major, etc.). Now he is considered a champion of \"breaking musical boundaries\", best known for his film scores, including the 1997 Strana Glukhikh (\"Land of the Deaf\") and the 1996 edition of Fritz Lang\'s 1927 classic, Metropolis. Possibly because of his film work, the press labeled him as \"Russia\'s Michael Nyman.\"
In 1994 Aigui formed 4\'33\", taking the group\'s name from the famous, eccentric work by John Cage, in which the performer does nothing for the length of time indicated by the title. The group then drifted away from its early academic minimalism . . . into hard rock, but Aigui kept composing in other genres. The ENSEMBLE 4\'33\" was the first ensemble in Russia to perform a certain number of pieces by John Cage, La Monte Young, Toru Takemitsu, Morton Feldman and other contemporary western composers. The Russian composers Vladimir Martynov, Anton Batagov and Pavel Karmanov have been writing pieces specially for the ensemble.
Aigui was born in Moscow in 1971, to the family of prominent Russian-Chuvashian poet Gennady Aigui. Although his father is highly esteemed in Chuvashia, an autonomous republic on the Volga River, Aigui says that he is linked to the land only by descent. As a teenager, Aigui was into Led Zeppelin, and briefly played bass with a hard-rock band in the mid-1980s. Aigui now divides his time between Moscow and Paris. He performs in France both with 4\'33\" and in collaboration with French musician Pierre Bastien, a partnership that produced the CD Musique cyrillique (\"Cyrillic Music\"). He also has recorded 2 albums of rock covers with German piano player Dietmar Bonnen: Up in the Sky (music of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan) and Black Water (music of Frank Zappa).
He participated with his ensemble in the following festivals: “Alternativa”, “Berlin – Moscow”, International Jazz Festival Archangelsk, Tampere Jazz Happening, Moscow Autumn, The New Baltic Dance Festival, Fete de La Music«, etc.