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Ardour and devotion to his artistic mission, remarkably original talent, profound interpretation of a score and tireless diligence compound to the profile of the pianist Yevhen Gromov

Vladimir Zagortsev, composer

(Kyiv, 1999)

 

Evgeny Gromov was born in 1973. The young virtuoso is the 1998 winner of the Revutsky State Prize, a prestigious award given annually in Ukraine. In the last few years he has been working intensely with many major Ukrainian composers (Silvestrov, Stankovych, Hrabovsky, Godziatsky, Huba, Zagortsev) with the intention of recording the pianistic canon of works composed since the sixties by living Ukrainian composers. He is under contract with TNC to record all this music, with special emphasis on the piano music of Valentin Silvestrov composed between 1955 and 2000 (a 4-CD set).

Virko Baley, composer , conductor & pianist

( Las Vegas, Nevada, 2000)

 

The  first time I received Evgeny Gromov's CD my momentary answer after listening to it was to give an instant call to Kyiv to confess that he opened a new Ukrainian avant-garde of  unusual style, unlike either Russian or Polish ones, absolutely novel and  extremely powerful. I was also to tell him that he turned out to be a pianist of unthinkable richness, endowed both with a genuine feeling of a large musicform and delicacy enabling him to respond to each  and every nuance due to the uncommon pianistic sound  with chords f-ff without  roughness, soft and pliable, shiningly worked into impeccable technique. Listening to the latest disc emphasized my previous highly favorable appreciation.

 György Kurtág, composer & pianist

(Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Bordeaux, 1 October 2007)

 

The pianist Yevhen Gromov, a refined highly gifted musician, recorded a great number of my piano works. His fastidious reading of the author's text with deep insight, his individual treatment of sound, his unique musical erudition delight such prominent masters as  Alexander Knaifel, Eduard Artemiev, Giya Kancheli… It should be also noted Yevhen Gromov's great contribution to the recording modern Ukrainian piano music antology which I think is unique and  unprecedented.

Valentin Silvestrov, composer & pianist

(Kyiv, 20 March 2002)

 

Wonderful is Evgeny Gromov's inborn plasticity! Wondrous are uncommon for a young musician the scope innermost depth and capacity of his repertoire! His keen ear chiselled by the Silvestrov life-giving music sends startling caution and considerate vigilance at any moment of his piano singing.

Alexander Knaifel, composer

(St.Petersburg, March 2002)

 

A  particular position the pianist Yevhen Gromov occupies within Ukrainian musicians' community is but conspicuous.

One can have a reward at the international piano competition provided you played 1. 000,000…..000 times Rach-­3 (which stands for  Rachmaninov Third Concert),  or  Tchai­-1, or “ Pictures from the Exibition” ...( you can go on with the list ) ­­eventualy creeping up on  the long­ awaited, marveled of, unparalleled ranks of 'the ants' forced by their lords-­managers ruling concert stages nowadays to play it 'safe' and 'right' and keep 'afloat', thus belonging to 'the set' which allows them to fly to and fro all over the world.

But instead of being unnoticeable part of the world-wide crowd, one like Mr. Gromov can dedicate yourself to the repertoire played only by him/her, or, by more precise definition, almost by nobody among 30 million of Chinese pianists with Lang ­Lang including. The music of 2nd half of 20 century - European, American, Ukrainian etc. is meant there.

To record eventually any and all of piano compositions of value written by Ukrainian composers in 80 or so recent years - from Levko Revutzky and Borys Lyatoshinsky to Valentyn Silvestrov, Yevhen Stankovych, Vitaly Godziatsky, Volodymyr Huba, Petro Solovkin, Volodymyr Zagortsev, Sviatoslav Krutykov and other contemporaries -- it is an event, a deed, a break-through. It might be compared only to similar acts of Glenn Gould  recording a special CD with Canadian 20 century piano music, or of the Gould's compatriot - unique virtuoso Marc-Andre Hamelin, who initiated a series of multi-CD albums with music of prominent Canadian classics and contemporaries. (Moreover, Mr. Hamelin had also recorded a good deal of Russian piano music which is now rarely played or even forgotten in its native country - like that of Nikolai Medtner or Nikolai Miaskovsky). 

But, as has been said before, Mr. Gromov doesn't limit himself to Ukrainian compositions only - he satisfies his musician's thirst of 20 century music which has never - or rarely - been known among Ukraine's and even Soviet Union concertgoers (well, cities of Moscow and Leningrad maybe excluded) -- before him. His concert programs of last 20 years or so include names like Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Bela Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Arthur Lourié, Andre Jolivet, Luigi Dallapiccola, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, György Kurtág, Morton Feldman, Galina Ustvolskaya, Alfred Schnittke, Alexander Knaifel, and others.

Brief, the richness, diversity, and importance of Mr. Gromov's concert stage and recording studio activities made him an outstanding figure on the  Ukrainian musical horizon. He both makes Ukrainian piano music heritage known to the world and draws the attention of those Ukrainians interested in the classical culture to the European and American piano music masterpieces written after WW2. By my belief, it cannot be over-estimated.

Leonid Hrabovsky, composer

(Irvington, NJ, USA, 2013)