Dmitri KOURLIANDSKI and Nastya RODIONOVA
Music composer and author

Dmitri and Nastya received a creative grant in partnership with the Atelier des Artistes en Exil.

Interview of Dmitri Kourliandski - Music composer
What is your artistic background ?
I was born in Moscow in 1976 and I studied at the Moscow Conservatory. In 2022 I had to leave Russia with my family, and now I live and work in France. I have won several composing competitions, including Gaudeamus (Netherlands), Franco Abbiati (Italy), Gianni Bergamo (Switzerland) and Johann Joseph Fux (Austria). In 2008, I was a resident of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm and in 2010 I was composer-in-residence at the 2E2M ensemble in Paris. Since 2012 I have taught courses and masterclasses in Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Ukraine, France, Israel, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and Russia. My music can be heard at concerts and festivals all over the world. Opera productions have taken place in Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, France and Russia.

How do you view your profession today ?
In my compositions, often static and repetitive, I develop the concept of "objective music", understood as an object, as a visual phenomenon or, more broadly, as a spatial (often interactive) installation. At the same time, for me, music is a constantly reassembled model of the world that includes the socio-political. I am interested in the possibility of reflecting these issues musically.

How do you see yourself in 5 years ? In 10 years ?
I don't live in the future - I live in the present. The future is created today (just like the past). The more complete and responsive my relationship to the present, the more likely I am to grasp and hear it.

Interview of  Nastya Rodionova - Author
What is your artistic background ?
I was born in Moscow, I trained as a classical philologist, and I studied literature at the Gorky Institute. For many years I worked as a political journalist for large daily newspapers, as well as in the field of social journalism and analytical op-eds. I also write prose, my first novel was published in Russia in 2021, and will be published in German in Austria in 2023. I also write poetry and work on theater and music projects. The opera Eurydice, by Dmitri Kourliandski with my libretto, has been staged in France and Italy.

How do you view your profession today ?
I am a Russian speaker in Paris, a writer, cut off from the language I speak and from the place where I was born and with which I was connected—until Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022. It seemed that I wouldn’t have much chance to build a new career in a new place, but I believe in myself and in this city, which has seen more difficult and unexpected situations in its time. After emigrating, I finished a second novel and started a third, wrote a cycle of poems, created several shows and composed the libretto for an opera. I believe in the power of continuous movement, the essential thing being not to stop.

How do you see yourself in 5 years ? In 10 years ?
I would be crazy if, as a Russian, I could look into the future. I recently left my native country with my husband, our three children and three small suitcases containing our whole lives. Five years ago, I would not have imagined this. There is a theory in modern anthropology that people who reach reproductive age live with the feeling that their generation will be the last. I reached that age a long time ago and have already made sure that my generation is followed by another. If I think about it, I see that in five years, two of my three sons will be growing mustaches. And in ten years, all three of them will have mustaches. That's probably the limit of my image of the future.

Interviews conducted en 2022
Photography credit : Morgane Delfosse