Quick Facts
Biography
Olga Yakovlevna Virezoub (Russian: Ольга Яковлевна Вирезуб) (born 18 March 1975 in Grozny, Chechnya, USSR) is a Russian-German composer, music producer, pianist and researcher.
Olga Virezoub was born into a family of musicians. She grew up in the artistic and theatric atmosphere of theater musicians, and, yet being a child, she often traveled with her parents across the whole Soviet Union, several times acting in the guest performances of their theater in the children's roles. She then began to learn piano in the Samarian music college and, in parallel to this, took composition lessons in Samara. Starting from 1994, she travelled to St. Petersburg, where upon a recommendation of her aunt she then began to study piano and composition with the famous Russian composer and virtuoso pianist Georgy Firtich at the Herzen University of St. Petersburg from 1995 to 1997, who introduced her to his colleagues and friends, became her most important mentor, and influenced her to that time strongly as a composer. Equally, following her aunt´s advice, she then studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where she obtained her basic education in composition and instrumentation with Vladimir Tsytovich from 1996 to 2000. The last years of studies at the conservatory finished she externally, as her family moved to Germany in 2000, but still with an excellent diploma in composition. She also attended numerous master classes in composition and piano during her studies, among others, with Nikolai Petrov and Paul-Heinz Dittrich. In parallel to her music studies, she took courses in French law and history at the "Collège Universitaire Française" of the University St. Petersburg. In 2001 - 2003 she completed the graduate program in composition and piano at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover. Also in 2003, she received a scholarship from OCNM to participate in the master classes and festival for contemporary and jazz music with Alvin Lucier, Tristan Murail, Christian Wolff, Frederic Rzewski, Roscoe Mitchell and others. A Wes residence in the world music program in Middletown, USA followed this experience, where she was an Alvin Lucier´s advisee in composition, and also worked with the American composer and pianist Neely Bruce, among others.
Olga Virezoub is a winner of several prizes and scholarships, including the Künstlerhaus Cismar fellowship from the Ministry of Education and Culture Schleswig-Holstein in Grömitz, Germany in 2004, and was distinguished for her work in Europe, Asia and the USA, for instance, as the "IMRadio featured artist" in Chicago in 2010 and several times the NUMBER ONE music featured and top 1 artist in the genres of experimental and jazz music in New York in 2012. Her music has been performed and herself performed as a pianist in such events of contemporary and jazz music as the "Musical Spring" and "Sound Ways" (1999) in St. Petersburg, "Cage Days" (2001) in Hannover, "Ostrava Days" (2003) in Ostrava, "Kieler Woche" (2005) in Kiel, "Donne Musica "(2004) and " Natale in Musica "(2007) in Rome by musicians from such ensembles as the "Sound Ways", "Das Neue Ensemble", "S.E.M. Ensemble", "OCNM Ensemble", "Anthony Braxton Ensemble" as well as with such legendary composers and musicians as, for instance, Roscoe Mitchell and Thomas Buckner.
Furthermore, as a composer and pianist, Olga Virezoub presented many new contemporary works by West European and American composers in Europe, and was the initiator of several projects of contemporary works in Germany. So, for instance, she was invited by the 'Verein Concertant e. V.' to give a piano recital with her own and works by European and American composers in 2008 in Hannover, after what she repeated and supplemented this project in 2009 in Göttingen. As a piano performer, she was engaged in over 30 first performances of her own as well as contemporary chamber music works by European and American composers as, for instance, "Senzapatria Sempiterno" by the German composer Anton Plate for the concert and award of the honorary doctor title onto Helmut Lachenmann in 2001 in Hannover. Beyond that, she also performed as a drummer of some regular and Gamelan instruments as well as a dancer of both the classical ballet and West African dance in Russia and the USA. In addition to it, Olga Virezoub is also author of several essays and works in the fields of music theory and history.
Since 2012 Olga Virezoub´s music is available worldwide in the online music stores and obtained several chart positions.
In April 2017 Olga Virezoub became a winner of "The Akademia Music Awards" in Los Angeles in the category "Best A Capella Song" for her choral piece "Ne Poy, Krasavitsa, Pri Mne" after the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.
In 2000 her family immigrated to Germany, where she has been resided since that time in Hannover.
Aesthetics of work and Perpetua Melodia © Music Conception
Olga Virezoub is inventor of a so-called Perpetua Melodia © Music Conception, which she originally formulated in her piece for violin Cadenza in 2003 and finally fulfilled in 2012 .
Looking for her own traditions of the contemporary music and multicultural work, she aligned her interests since middle of 2009 very intensively in the direction of the world music, above all of the African traditional music as well as the Indonesian Gamelan music (Gamelan Angklung), exposing herself to the term of world music as a composer, and introducing by this the new possible ways and perspectives for the new music advancement, which she shapes, among other things, in the melody – the crucial elements of her work as the so-called perpetua melodia (the everlasting melody) and cantica infinita (the infinite song) or cantiche infinite (the infinite songs), for whose main principle she drew her inspiration, above all, from her Russian origin as well as Russian music melodiousness, but furthermore, from the expressive melody of the Italian language and poetry, and first formulated in her piece Cadenza for violin and live electronics in 2003 - as well as in the form and principles, primarily, of the world music, among other things, of the African and Gamelan music, characterized furthermore by the African music rhythms and dances as well as West European compositional techniques of the 20th century, US-American - including the rhythms of ragtime and jazz - and electronic music, in particular, by the electronic dance music.
She expressed and realized these ideas, among others, in such her works as the Singa Nebah (2010) for guitar as well as Pulchritudinous Music (2010/11) for orchestra.