Nikolai Kapustin

At 86 years old, Nikolai Kapustin physical status not available right now. We will update Nikolai Kapustin's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

During the 1950s, Kapustin acquired a reputation as a jazz pianist, arranger and composer. He had his own quintet, which performed at an "upscale restaurant" monthly. He played as a member of Yury Saulsky's big band and later in the Oleg Lundstrem Orchestra. In his compositions, he fused the traditions of both classical piano repertoire and improvisational jazz, combining jazz idioms and classical music structures. His Suite in the Old Style, Op. 28, written in 1977, sounds like jazz improvisation but is modeled after Baroque suites such as Johann Sebastian Bach's keyboard partitas. Other examples of his fusion music are 24 Preludes in Jazz Style, Op. 53, 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 82, written in 1997, and the Sonatina, Op. 100.

Kapustin regarded himself as a composer rather than a jazz musician: "I was never a jazz musician. I never tried to be a real jazz pianist, but I had to do it because of the composing. I'm not interested in improvisation – and what is a jazz musician without improvisation? All my improvisations are written, of course, and they became much better; it improved them."

Among his works are 20 piano sonatas, six piano concertos, other instrumental concertos, sets of piano variations, études and concert studies.

Record labels have released several recordings of the composer performing his own music. His music has been played by leading pianists including Ludmil Angelov, Marc-André Hamelin, Masahiro Kawakami, Thomas Ang, Nikolai Petrov, Steven Osborne, Yeol Eum Son and Vadim Rudenko, and by cellists such as Enrico Dindo and Eckart Runge.

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