Vladimir Nesterenko is one of the most distinctive figures on the Moscow jazz scene, a pianist, organist, and flutist with a wide range of musical interests and ideas.
He began his professional jazz career while studying at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, where his teachers were Professor Vladimir Kudrya (flute) and Professor Igor Bril (piano).
He has taken part in numerous jazz festivals, both as a sideman and as leader of his own groups, including Jazz in Hermitage Garden, Usadba Jazz, Jazz May, Jazz on Baikal, Swing of the White Nights, Arkhangelsk Jazz, and many others.
In 2005 he completed an Open World internship at the Thelonious Monk Institute at The New School in New York, which included a performance at Blue Note with Clark Terry, Jimmy Heath, and Kenny Barron.
Since 2003 he has taught at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music and the Institute of Contemporary Art.
He has collaborated with many Russian and international artists, among them Gregory Porter, Didier Lockwood, Frank Lacy, Zbigniew Namyslowski, Miles Griffith, Piotr Wojtasik, Steve Slagle, Allan Harris, JD Walter, Joe Ford, Eve Cornelious, Michael Mwenso, Michael Schiefel, Michaela Steinhauer, Igor Butman, Daniil Kramer, Alexander Oseychuk (Zelyonaya volna), German Lukyanov (KaDAns), Vladimir Chekasin, and many others.
He has presented a number of festival programmes paying tribute to great jazz masters of the past, including Charles Mingus, Jimmy Smith, and Bill Evans.
He is the first Russian musician to adopt the organ trio, on a permanent basis, as his principal ensemble format.
He has released two albums of original music, ZeliBop (2009) and Organologiya (2012), the latter being the first organ trio album in the Soviet‑Russian discography. He also performs the programme Jazz Dialogues with Pipe Organ, presented in Penza, Murmansk, Moscow, Chelyabinsk, and Arkhangelsk.
Vladimir Nesterenko’s artistic credo is a constant search for new, fresh ideas and musical solutions, combined with a firm grounding in the rich traditions of jazz and classical music.
