Childhood
Timofei was born on June 27, 1994, in Novosibirsk, in a family of musicians: mother – choirmaster, father – artist of musical theater. His parents were students, so Timofei constantly appeared at lectures and classes at the Conservatory with his parents, and at the age of 5 he entered the piano class of Meri Lebenzon, Honored Artist of Russia. He studied in her class until his graduation from the M.I. Glinka Novosibirsk Conservatory in 2017.
Youth
As a child, he studied at the music lyceum (later college) at the Conservatory, where conservatory professors taught. There he made his main creative contacts: chamber ensembles with violinist Anita Lakhina, violist Leonid Pateyuk and conductors Vyacheslav Shaldyshev and Sergei Shebalin. Friendship with composer and professor of organ and historical clavier, Gleb Nikulin. At weekly soccer games, Timofei became close to many professors and students of the folk instrument department.
From the age of 9 until his graduation from music college he studied organ with Associate Professor Natalia Baginskaya, in whose class there is a special friendly creative atmosphere. The first creative trip to Europe – to the master classes of Professors Johann Trummer and Gunther Rost in Graz – was associated with her.
from the age of 12 began successes as a pianist: first prize at the EuropaFest competition in Bucharest, then – Silver medal at the Delphic Games of Russia, first place in the youth competition in memory of Vera Lothar-Shevchenko and then – a tour of cities in France: Nice, Toulon, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence and a concert at the Cortot Hall in Paris.
Conservatoire
In college and conservatory, Timofei participated in many student projects: in concerts of the composition department, in assembled ensembles, in the New Music Laboratory and the Musica Integral festival.
He also had his own student project: when Timofei was in his second year, businessman Andrei Kochev sponsored the recording of a library of samples for an orchestra of Russian folk instruments: domras and balalaikas. In half a season, they managed to sample 8 orchestra groups, 4 of which now exist as Kontakt instruments and are posted in the public domain. So far, this is the only library of Russian folk orchestra samples.
Philharmonic
After graduating from college, he became the youngest soloist of the Novosibirsk Philharmonic and worked there for 3 years, until the birth of his daughter.
At the Philharmonic he had the opportunity to play several times with the symphony orchestra, with conductor Ekhtibar Akhmedov, and formed duets with mezzo-soprano Olesya Zhuravkina and violinist Anna Sharomova. The Philharmonic allowed, for the first time since the beginning of his studies, not to chase the complexity of works and to search for his own tastes in piano music. Thus, Timofei prepared a program of Tchaikovsky’s piano miniatures and got acquainted with Hindemith, Ravel and de Falla.
Life
At the Conservatoire he met the soprano Alena Schetinkina (now Kazantseva).
They have a daughter, Sofia, and the couple have formed a chamber vocal duo. Alena and Timofei discover themselves in characteristic music, and love strange and chthonic repertoire.
After the birth of their daughter, Timofei concentrated on his studies at the Conservatory, where he became close to the students and teachers of the violin department, around Professor Marina Kuzina. After graduating from the conservatory, he worked for six months at the FeiRan music school in Beijing, after which he returned and together with Alena opened the music school Polyfonia, which they developed until June 2022, when they hastily immigrated to Germany.
Music Production
His father wrote instrumentals for his mother’s vocal studio – from an early age this became Timofei’s main hobby and, for a while, his main source of income. A big push into music production was given by Roman Chubich, then still a conservatory student and the first violinist of the Novosibirsk Philharmonic pop orchestra. Roman also opened for him a community of Russian music producers, where Igor Laletin, Ivan Burlyaev, Dmitry Noskov, Vladislav Ponomarenko, Vladimir Osinsky and many great composers, sound engineers and producers from Russia and Ukraine actively communicated and discussed each other’s works. In such an environment, Timofei achieved mastery of orchestration, mixing and producing music in all acoustic music styles.
In his second year, he entered as a composer in the film directing workshop of Janik Faiziev at VGIK, where he wrote music for two short films directed by Dmitry Ragozin and Nastya Yulina.
Nowadays
Since August 2022 they have been living in Germany: Alyona is a chorus artist at the Plauen-Zwickau Theater and Timothy is a teacher at the music school on Thomas Mann Square in Chemnitz.
They have organized several concerts both solo and duo: at the Haus der Parität in Kirschberg, at the music school and museum Kunstsammlungen in Chemnitz, at the Schumann-Haus Zwickau, at the choir museum in Feuchtwangen.
