Performer (balalaika), teacher.
Andrey Aleksandrovich Gorbachev was born in 1970 in Voronezh.
In 1988 he completed Voronezh Music College externally in the class of I. V. Inshakov. In 1994 he graduated from the Gnesin State Musical and Pedagogical Institute in the class of Professor P. I. Necheporenko, and in 1997 he completed an assistant traineeship at the Gnesin Academy.
His first public performance took place in 1978.
In 1992 he was awarded the Grand Prix and Special Prize for Artistry at the First International Folk Instrument Performers’ Competition Cup of the North in Cherepovets, and in 1993 he won First Prize and the Special Prize for Best Ensemble at the First International Competition for Performers on Russian Folk Instruments named after V. V. Andreyev in Tver.
From 1990 to 2015 he performed as a member of the Classic Duo with Honoured Artist of Russia Tatyana Khaninova.
Andrey Gorbachev has performed for Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (1992), for Presidents of Russia Boris Yeltsin (1994) and Vladimir Putin (2012), for President of Switzerland Doris Leuthard (2010) and for President of Finland Tarja Halonen (2010).
Since 2011 he has appeared with People’s Artist of Russia Denis Matsuev and Honoured Artist of Russia Alexander Ivanov in jazz projects.
He is a regular participant in major international festivals, including Crescendo, Denis Matsuev Invites, Moscow Musical Autumn, the Schleswig‑Holstein Musik Festival (Germany), Bayan and Bayanists, Contemporary Music for Folk Orchestras, Young Russia’s Strings, Constellation of Masters and others.
He serves as Artistic Director of the All‑Russian project Balalaika – Soul of Russia and President of the Baikal Strings International Festival in Irkutsk.
He began his teaching career in 1997 at the Tambov State Rachmaninov Music and Pedagogical Institute. Since 2000 he has taught at the Gnesin Academy, where since 2004 he has been Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Plucked String Folk Instruments, and since 2010 Professor.
He is the author of around fifty publications, including degree syllabuses for courses in Balalaika Performance, Methods of Teaching Plucked String Folk Instruments and Foundations of Contemporary Repertoire, and he is compiler and editor of the Anthology of Literature for Balalaika (2011).
More than forty of his students have become laureates of all‑Russian and international competitions. At the First All‑Russian Music Competition (2013) his pupils I. Kuznetsov (First Prize), O. Piskunov (Second Prize) and A. Vrodlivets (Third Prize) were among the winners. At the Second All‑Russian Music Competition (2017) all three prizes went to his students: O. Piskunov (First Prize), A. Vrodlivets (Second Prize), I. Kuznetsov (Second Prize as a member of the ensemble Russian Renaissance) and A. Nikolaychuk (Third Prize).
Andrey Gorbachev has significantly expanded the technical and artistic possibilities of the balalaika, devising new solutions to issues of tone production, including guitar‑style pizzicato combined with pizzicato I and II, the use of octave tremolo and wide‑position left‑hand fingerings. He has also proposed special techniques for the upper register of the balalaika. At his initiative, instrument maker Ye. N. Vinogradov was the first to build balalaikas with thirty‑one frets.
He has given more than thirty‑five world premieres of new original works for balalaika. Composers who have written specifically for him include S. M. Slonimsky, Ye. I. Podgaits, M. B. Bronner, T. P. Sergeyeva, K. Ye. Volkov, A. I. Kusyakov, A. A. Tsygankov, A. G. Tikhomirov, A. G. Rogachyov, M. I. Tsayger, T. A. Chudova, V. D. Zubitsky, Ye. P. Derbenko, V. V. Belyayev, O. V. Osipova, Ye. K. Kryuchkov, D. V. Zakharov, A. P. Isakova and N. A. Khondo.
Touring (more than two thousand concerts): Austria (2008 – twice, 2015), the United Kingdom (1991–1993), Belgium (2002), Hungary (1997), Germany (annually since 2001), Spain (2007, 2015), Latvia (1994, 1996, 1997, 2007, 2011), Poland (1997, 2013), Portugal (2008, 2009), the United States (1992, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2013), Ukraine (1994, 1995, 1997, 2003, 2010), Turkey (2004, 2005, 2010), Finland (2009, 2010, 2013), France (1995, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2014), the Czech Republic (2010), Switzerland (annually since 2007), the former Yugoslavia (1997, 1999), Japan (1994, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2007, 2015) and the Principality of Liechtenstein (2015).
Selected major concerts:
- 2010, Ankara Arena, Turkey – solo appearance with the Presidential Symphony Orchestra of Turkey (12,000 listeners);
- 2016, State Kremlin Palace, Moscow – performance in Denis Matsuev’s project Playing Jazz (5,700 listeners);
- 2016, Oktyabrsky Grand Concert Hall, St Petersburg – performance in Denis Matsuev’s project Playing Jazz (3,600 listeners);
- 2017, Carnegie Hall, New York.
He performs regularly with leading symphony orchestras (more than forty) and with folk instrument orchestras (more than thirty).
www.andreygorbachev.com
Article by Honoured Art Worker of Russia, Doctor of Art History, Professor M. I. Imkhanitsky
Recent achievements: on 26 February 2017 he gave the first solo balalaika recital in history at Carnegie Hall in New York (piano part by L. Freund, Germany). In December 2017 Bavarian Television broadcast the programme Klik‑klak devoted to Andrey Gorbachev and L. Freund.
At the Second All‑Russian Music Competition (2017) his pupils O. Piskunov (First Prize), A. Vrodlivets (Second Prize) and A. Nikolaychuk (Third Prize) were among the winners.
In 2020 he received honorary diplomas from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.
