Arvo Pärt is an Estonian composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. His most performed works include Fratres (1977), Spiegel im Spiegel (1978), and Für Alina (1976). From 2011 to 2018, and again in 2022, Pärt was the most performed living composer in the world, and the second most performed in 2019, after John Williams. The Arvo Pärt Centre, in Laulasmaa, was opened to the public in 2018.
ECM is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres. ECM's motto is "the most beautiful sound next to silence", taken from a 1971 review of ECM releases in Coda, a Canadian jazz magazine.
Heinz Robert Holliger is a Swiss virtuoso oboist, composer and conductor. Celebrated for his versatility and technique, Holliger is among the most prominent oboists of his generation. His repertoire includes Baroque and Classical pieces, but he has regularly engaged in lesser known pieces of Romantic music, as well as his own compositions. He often performed contemporary works with his wife, the harpist Ursula Holliger; composers such as Berio, Carter, Henze, Krenek, Lutosławski, Martin, Penderecki, Stockhausen and Yun have written works for him. Holliger is a noted composer himself, writing works such as the opera Schneewittchen (1998).
Heino Eller was an Estonian composer and pedagogue, known as the founder of contemporary Estonian symphonic music.
Eleni Karaindrou is a Greek composer. She is best known for scoring the films of the Greek director Theo Angelopoulos.
Manfred Eicher is a German record producer and the founder of ECM Records.
Andrey Petrovich Zvyagintsev is a Russian film director and screenwriter. His film The Return (2003) won him a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Following The Return, Zvyagintsev directed The Banishment (2007) and Elena (2011). His film Leviathan (2014) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film in 2014 and won the Best Film award at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. His most recent film Loveless won the Jury Prize at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, and was among the nominees for Best International Feature Film at the 90th Academy Awards. He also won the Achievement in Directing award for this film at the 2017 Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
Tintinnabuli is a compositional style created by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, introduced in his Für Alina (1976), and used again in Spiegel im Spiegel (1978). This simple style was influenced by the composer's mystical experiences with chant music. Musically, Pärt's tintinnabular music is characterized by two types of voice, the first of which arpeggiates the tonic triad, and the second of which moves diatonically in mostly stepwise motion. The works often have a slow and meditative tempo, and a minimalist approach to both notation and performance. Pärt's compositional approach has expanded somewhat in the years since 1970, but the overall effect remains largely the same. An early example can be heard in Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten.
Alexander Aronovich Knaifel is a Soviet composer known for his operas The Ghost of Canterville and Alice in Wonderland as well as for his music for cinema.
Dimitar Nenov was a Bulgarian classical pianist, composer, music pedagogue and architect.
Tõnu Kaljuste is an Estonian conductor.
Pedro Humberto Allende Sarón was one of the most important Chilean composers of the twentieth century. He obtained the prestigious Premio Nacional de Arte in 1945.
Tigran Yeghiayi Mansurian is a leading Armenian composer of classical and film music, People's Artist of the Armenian SSR (1990), and Honored Art Worker of the Armenian SSR (1984). He is the author of orchestral, chamber, choir, and vocal works which have been played across the world.
Alexander Yefymovych Rodnyansky is a Ukrainian film director, film producer, television executive and businessman. As a media-manager Rodnyansky founded the first Ukrainian independent television network 1+1 and ran Russian CTC Media, which under his management became the first Russian media company to publicly trade on NASDAQ.
Viktor Stepanovych Kosenko was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, and educator. He was regarded by his contemporaries as a master of lyricism.
Mikhail Krichman is a Russian cinematographer who received a Golden Osella award at the 67th Venice Film Festival for Silent Souls and 3 time award winner at Camerimage. Krichman is best known to western audiences for his work with renowned Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev. He photographed all of Zvyagintsev's films, including The Return (2003), The Banishment (2007), Elena (2010), Leviathan (2014) and Loveless (2017). Zvyagintsev claims that Krichman learned his craft by reading American Cinematographer. Krichman also shot Miss Julie for Norwegian director Liv Ullmann.
Loveless is a 2017 drama film directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev, who co-wrote it with Oleg Negin. The story concerns two separated parents, played by Maryana Spivak and Aleksey Rozin, whose loveless relationship has decayed into a state of bitterness and hostility. They are temporarily drawn back together after their only child goes missing and they attempt to find him.
Cecilia, vergine romana is a composition for mixed choir and orchestra by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, written in 2000 for the Great Jubilee in Rome. The Italian text deals with the life and martyrdom of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music, and was first performed on 19 November 2000, close to her feast day on 22 November, by the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia conducted by Myung-whun Chung.
Gleb Fetisov is a billionaire, investor, film producer with twice Oscar-nominated movie productions, philanthropist. He holds a PhD and is a professor of economics and finance, former member of the Federation Council for the Voronezh Region (2001—2009) and former chair of Green Alliance party (2012—2015). He is no longer a Russian citizen, and is instead a citizen of Cyprus, where he resides.
Augustin Viard is a French musician who plays the ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument developed in the 1920s.
