Boris Filanovsky

Born in Leningrad. Graduated in 1995 from the Rimski-Korsakov State Conservatoire where studied under Boris Tishchenko. In 1992-97 attended the Russian Seminars for Young Composers at Ivanovo, under Sergei Berinsky. Winner of IRCAM Reading Panel'97. In 1998 studied at IRCAM.

2000-2012 – artistic leader of eNsemble, a sinfonietta-like contemporary music group in St.Petersburg. Accomplished numerous musical projects, among them "Pythian Games" (annual composers' competition with anonymous performance and public voting) and "Step Aleft" (competition for young composers). In total eNsemble has commissioned and premiered about a hundred works by new Russian composers.

2003 – 24th Irino Prize for Chamber Music, Tokyo.

2005 – shortlisted for final round of Third Competition "Music of 21 Century", Seoul.

2006 – artist-in-residence in Djerassi, California.

2010 – shortlisted for Youtube Russia composition competition, Moscow

2013/14 – artist-in-residence at Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD.

Member of Structural Resistance Group (StRes) that unites six influential Russian composers of his generation.

Since 2005 – performs as vocalist/narrator, with a dozen of works by Russian composers dedicated to him. As a performer of his own works and works by other composers collaborated with such artists as Teodor Currentzis, Reinbert de Leeuw, Pierre Roullier, Roland Kluttig, Fedor Lednev

Festivals & commissions: Maerzmusik, Klangspuren, Transart, Éclat, Festival d'Automne Paris, Nuit Numérique Reims, Diaghilev, Electrotheatre Moscow, Moscow Philharmonics, The Platform Moscow.

Works performed by collectives: Schoenberg Ensemble, DoelenEnsemble, Orkest De Volharding, Nieuw Ensemble, 2e2m, Avanti!, Slagwerk Den Haag, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Maulwerker, KNM Berlin, ensemble mosaik, unitedBerlin, Quatuor Diotima, Russian National Orchestra, The Ural Philharmonics, MCME, Israeli Contemporary Players

Works performed by artists: Teodor Currentzis, Vladimir Jurowski, Reinbert de Leeuw, Dmitri Liss, Jurjen Hempel, Pierre Roullier, John Størgårds, Otto Tausk, Susanna Mälkki, Sergei Tchirkov, Frances-Marie Uitti, Arno Fabre.

Operatic works include Three Four, an off-theatre opera on texts by famous Russian conceptual poet Lev Rubinstein (staged in 2013 by Dmitry Volkostrelov), and Drillalians, part of the opera serial on the book by Boris Yukhananov (staged in June 2015 by Boris Yukhananov).

Filanovsky is proteistic by nature, feeling himself as a Stravinsky-like creative type. He experiences strong tension to documentary texts and generative poetry (Scompositio, Words and Spaces, bzdmn, He made forty) as well as Russian zaum' and nonsense verses (A Certain Quantity of Conversations, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, Throughchant on Woruld Sprouting). From other side, he feels the spirit of deconstruction and plays with performing habits (We Can’t Perform It, Schmozart, Seemphony, play.list). Last years he elaborates vast monotimbral compositions with fuzzy logic as main formal principle (Collectivision, La Machine Fleuve, Cantus with Cleansing, Tristans Liebestod und Nachspiel).

Since 1996 till 2016 Filanovsky worked as music journalist and columnist for federal and local newspapers, magazines and online media. In 2003-2012 he taught music journalism at the courses of Pro Arte Foundation in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Krasnoyarsk. Since 2016 he leads private webinars Creative listening where develops an interdisciplinary approach across music cognition, music history, and formal analysis; this allows to introduce special concepts and cases to people without music education.