Blind pianist Oleg let them talk. A blind musician gave up fame for money for his family. – You play both jazz and classical music. Which of these two directions is closer to you and why?

Oleg Akkuratov, whose biography will be described in this article, is a young pianist, virtuoso, laureate of prestigious competitions and festivals. The brilliant musician was blind from birth and was brought up in a boarding school.

Biography

Oleg Akkuratov was born in the Krasnodar region, in the village of Morevka, in 1989. He was raised by his grandparents, his mother was only fifteen years old. The pianist was born blind. Musical abilities began to appear in the boy at the age of 4 years. His grandmother took him to an audition in Armavir, the only one in Russia music school-boarding school for visually impaired and blind children. He was accepted to study there, and the boy left home. In Armavir Oleg learned musical notation according to the Braille system. At the age of 6, he was already playing P. I. Tchaikovsky’s first concerto, which he learned by ear from a record. Then he won his first victory in the competition. In 2008, Oleg graduated from the Moscow College of Music pop-jazz art and entered the Institute of Music.

Oleg has an excellent musical memory; he performs both classics and jazz wonderfully. Doesn't exist for him complex works. O. Akkuratov sings well and has a pleasant lyrical baritone.

Creative path

In 2003, while still a student, Oleg Akkuratov performed in Great Britain before the Pope. He also took part in a concert by the outstanding opera diva Montserrat Caballe.

In 2005, the young pianist performed in Moscow, St. Petersburg and London. His partners were world-famous orchestras.

In 2006, Oleg proved himself to be a talented vocalist, taking 1st place in the competition of choirs and soloists.

In 2009, A. Akkuratov was the hero of A. Malakhov’s “Let Them Talk” program. Then he moved to live in Morevka, with his father and his family. He headed the Mich Band jazz orchestra in the city of Yeisk and became a soloist at the Russian Opera Theater. A concert was organized at the Moscow Conservatory in which Oleg Akkuratov was supposed to perform. The pianist planned to perform J. S. Bach's fantasy together with a combined choir of 815 people and an orchestra. But the concert did not take place. Oleg’s father, who had previously not taken any part in his son’s fate, prevented this performance.

Due to blindness, the pianist has to spend 10 or more hours a day mastering new works. Oleg is constantly developing and improving.

Awards

Owner large quantity diplomas is Oleg Akkuratov. The blind pianist became a laureate of a large number of competitions and festivals of the regional, all-Russian and international levels. He received his first diploma in 2002.

Competitions in which Oleg Akkuratov won

• "The starry youth of the planet."
• Competition for young performers jazz music.
• “Piano in Jazz” (competition for young performers).
• Contest young pianists named after K. Igumnov.
• "Orpheus".
• Competition of young composers of Kuban and many others.

In 2001, he became a scholarship recipient of the Gifted Children program.

Found family

Oleg Akkuratov, as mentioned above, was brought up with his grandmother, and then in a special music school for visually impaired and blind children. Parents did not take any part in the musician’s upbringing. Several years ago, Oleg found a father and stepmother. And also two brothers and a sister. Oleg now lives with them in Morevka. They control his entire life. There are rumors that his relatives forced the pianist to perform almost in restaurants so that he could earn money from them, since none of his family members worked. His apartment, which he received from the state, is put up for sale, and the money accumulated in his account has been spent. The pianist's father is going to become his concert director, because he believes that the musician does not need strangers, although he does not have the necessary experience for this.

Concert programs

Oleg Akkuratov is actively touring. He travels to different cities and also performs at prestigious venues in the capital.

Concert programs this season:

• “The Saved World Remembers” (evening in memory of composer A. Eshpai);
• festival of musical humor in Chelyabinsk;
• concert with Deborah Brown;
• "Beauty Queens";
• performance with Igor Butman and his orchestra;
• musical evenings in Aramil and Yekaterinburg;
• concert with the Russian Chamber Orchestra;
• charity marathon "Flower of Seven Flowers";
• concert with Jesse Jones and others.

A landmark event in which Oleg Akkuratov took part was a concert " The possibilities are limited - the abilities are limitless." The pianist performed in a duet with E. Kunz. The musicians performed F. Schubert's Fantasia in F minor four hands. The performance was bright and emotional. The musicians played superbly with each other and sounded like one person.

Great actress

Oleg Akkuratov became the prototype for the main character of the film "Motley Twilight", in which actress Lyudmila Gurchenko acted as director and composer. The film was filmed in 2009. The premiere show took place in Lyudmila Markovna, who loved the blind pianist very much, called him son and did a lot for him. She attended school in Armavir, where Oleg studied, and took part in a charity concert. The great actress and the young pianist performed songs included in the film “Motley Twilight,” which was still in the process of filming at that time. A lot of listeners came to the concert. Lyudmila Gurchenko and Oleg Akkuratov were not allowed to leave the stage for a long time. Death great actress became a blow for the musician.

Mikhail Okun, Oleg’s teacher, is seriously concerned about the future of his student.

If you still don't know the name, , then now you can get to know him better and just be proud that such rare talents are born in our country.

Why a phenomenal pianist?

The fact is that Oleg was born a blind child and was, so to speak, “deprived” of all the sensations associated with visual perception peace. However, instead of vision, he received absolute pitch, musical memory and an excellent sense of rhythm. Since childhood, he showed a special love for music and already at the age of four he played the melodies he heard on the piano for the first time. This is where his confident rise to the Olympus of fame began.

By the age of six, Oleg was taken to a specialized music school for blind and visually impaired children. However, she was at the boarding school, where he moved. There he was taught to read music using the Braille system.

Today, Oleg Akkuratov is considered a virtuoso in his field. He became a laureate of many competitions, both national and international. He even performed on the same stage with Monserat Caballe, at the residence of the Pope. And showed himself on many others musical projects. Today his name is in to a greater extent They call him a jazz star.

But I still think it’s his completely different qualities that make him stand out. Although he has many abilities that he most likely developed in past incarnations, he is primarily distinguished by a great desire to “be and live.” Perseverance and endurance, willpower and confidence, firmness and discipline - made him what he is now. Namely, a famous pianist, albeit blind, from this his talent and skill only increases.

His example shows us that, despite physical and external circumstances (he actually grew up with his grandparents), you can remain not just a Man with a capital P, but also strive and achieve your goal. He boldly walked forward towards his dream. He took advantage of all the opportunities that the Universe gave him and showed that

) - pianist, jazz improviser, singer. Visually disabled since childhood (totally blind).

Biography

Now Oleg is a soloist of the Russian Opera Theater, artistic director and soloist of the MICH Band jazz orchestra (piano).

Competitions and awards

• - Grand Prix of the regional competition among students of piano departments of children's music schools and art schools of the Krasnodar Territory.
• - Laureate of the regional competition for young composers of Kuban “Orpheus”.
• - Laureate of the International Philanthropist Award, Laureate of the First Russian Competition of Young Performers of Jazz Music in Saratov.
• - Winner of the Fifth All-Russian competition young pianists named after Konstantin Igumny in Lipetsk.
• , February - participant of international master classes at the Royal Academy of Music in London
• , June - received a diploma and a special prize as the best choir accompanist and soloist at international festival arts "Starry Youth of the Planet", which took place at the All-Russian children's center"Eaglet".
• , December - performed the piano part in the most complex Concerto by John Psazas “A View from Olympus” for piano, percussion and symphony orchestra. The concerts took place in three cities: Great hall Moscow Conservatory with the Russian national orchestra, conducted by Martin Brabbins (Great Britain), St. Petersburg with the Academic Philharmonic Orchestra named after D.D. Shostakovich (conducted by Martin Brabbins) and in London with the Royal symphony orchestra(conductor - K. Monks).
• , November - Grand Prix in the category “Performer of Jazz Music” and a 1st degree diploma in the category “Composition, Arrangement and Improvisation” at Russian competition young performers of jazz music “Royal in Jazz” (Moscow).

Oleg Akkuratov, as a member of the UNESCO World Composite Choir, took part in concerts: in St. Petersburg, in the presence of Pope John Paul II, in 2003 in Great Britain. Also, Oleg took part in the concert with outstanding opera singer Monserat Caballe.

• - 1st place as part of a vocal duet at the regional competition of choirs, soloists-vocalists and vocal ensembles of students of children's music schools and art schools of the Krasnodar Territory.

About him

Complete blindness.

Encyclopedic YouTube

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✪ Aslan Akhmadov and Oleg Akkuratov - I dreamed about you for three years

✪ Triumph of Jazz (Fantini and Oleg Akkuratov)

✪ Concert of Oleg Akkuratov

Subtitles

Biography

As a member of the UNESCO World Composite Choir, he took part in the world premiere of the international charity event “Thousands of Cities of the World” and performed at the residence of the Pope.

Oleg Akkuratov has outstanding musical abilities: perfect pitch, musical memory, sense of rhythm. Masterly plays jazz and classical works. He can sing in English and German, having learned this on his own by listening to songs on an audio player. Having heard a melody, for example on the radio, he can play it on the piano from memory. He loves poetry and knows many poems by heart.

Since 2013, Oleg Akkuratov has been working closely with People's Artist Russia by Igor Butman. As a member of the Igor Butman Quartet and the Moscow Jazz Orchestra, Oleg toured Latvia, Israel, the Netherlands, Italy, India, the USA and Canada.

In 2013, Oleg Akkuratov became a real sensation at the Triumph of Jazz festival.

In May of the same year, Oleg, along with double bassist Kate Davis, drummer Mark Whitfield and saxophonist Francesco Cafiso, became a participant in Igor Butman's international project "The Future of Jazz", with which he performed at the Chereshnevy Les festivals in Moscow and Aquajazz. Sochi Jazz Festival in Sochi.

In April 2015, at the invitation of Wynton Marsalis, Oleg performed at the Rose Hall of New York's Lincoln Center with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

In April 2016, the pianist’s debut album “Golden Sunray”, recorded with the Igor Butman Quartet, was released on the Butman Music Records label.

On February 1, 2017, Oleg’s first Big solo concert took place in the Svetlanov Hall of the Moscow International House of Music with the participation of Igor Butman and special guests

Competitions and awards

About him

Unique blind pianist Oleg Akkuratov - about the main task of his life

Doctors and psychologists know: nature often more than compensates for the absence of one of the senses by the development of others. This is what happened to Oleg Akkuratov. Blind from birth, the boy discovered phenomenal musical abilities. Now that Oleg is 27, it has become obvious: Akkuratov is Talent with a capital T. And a Man with the same one. On my first ever big concert in the capital, in the Svetlanov Hall of the Moscow International House of Music, the musician from Krasnodar amazed the capital's audience with how surprisingly natural he felt in the world of European classics and jazz, showing himself to be a subtle interpreter and a brilliant virtuoso. But our conversation with Oleg after the concert concerned not only music.

He was born in the city of Yeysk, Krasnodar Territory, to a minor mother, and was raised by his grandparents. And they noticed how enthusiastically the baby picked out any melody he heard on the piano. They showed it to the teachers of the local music school - they immediately accepted the guy into first grade. Then Oleg graduated from a specialized music school for blind and visually impaired children (it turns out there is one in Armavir, Rostov region), and the Moscow Music College of Pop and Jazz Art. And then the Rostov State Conservatory (with honors!), where he is now a graduate student and also teaches.

Oleg is a laureate of Russian and international competitions, not special ones, but those where sighted musicians compete. He toured Russia with concerts and performed in the most prestigious foreign halls. As a member of the Igor Butman Quartet and the Moscow Jazz Orchestra, he toured in Israel, the Netherlands, Italy, India, the USA, Canada... And everywhere he received a standing ovation. The hall of the Moscow House of Music was no exception...

— Oleg, jazz is often contrasted with classical music, but you brilliantly play both. What is closer to you?

— For me, classical and jazz are two facets of the same art, I like to combine them in my programs. IN classic work you must play all the notes accurately, convey the author's phrasing and dynamics. But in jazz you improvise, build a composition, come up with riffs - repeatable motifs... When I play classics for a long time, I begin to miss jazz, and vice versa.

Music can express and depict anything - even the mountains of Tibet, even the prairies of Texas. In Debussy you can directly hear the singing of forest birds. Or take Grieg... You immediately understand: this is the north, Norway - the sea, fjords, meadows. And in tragic works Beethoven's music reveals battles and revolutions, not only those that have happened, but also those that are yet to come...

— A more practical question: how do you learn pieces?

- Using a computer. I slow down the tempo, listen to what the right side is playing, left hand. I reproduce the parts, but not mechanically, but trying to catch the accents and polyphonic effects. I spend whole days at the instrument, from morning to evening. Music is as vast as the ocean. You can dive deeper and deeper into a work you already know, constantly finding new nuances. Actually, this is what my whole life consists of.

— How many of your 27 years have you been playing the piano?

— I’ve been playing since I was three years old. I went to music school at six. At the age of 10, he was already performing Children's albums by Tchaikovsky and Schumann, sonatas by Mozart. Having mastered this, I moved on to Beethoven's Pathetic Sonata, Rachmaninov's preludes... I love the feeling when you seem to grow from play to play. I also write instrumental music and songs. But in at the moment focused primarily on classical music - after all, graduate school obliges.

— Tell us about the school for blind musicians in Armavir.

“She’s the first one like this in Russia.” Opened in 1989 on the initiative of wonderful person- blind accordion player and teacher Vladimir Sukhorukov. At first, only visually impaired people studied there, then they began to accept everyone. Everyone learns together, which is very good. Our teachers have developed a technique that uses notes written in Braille. And we perceive a lot by ear. The school has well-equipped classrooms, excellent instruments... Three years ago, at the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Sochi, I played the Paralympic anthem, and a student from our school, Nafset Chenib, sang brilliantly with Jose Carreras and Diana Gurtskaya.

I owe my victory to my teachers, first of all Anna Yuryevna Kudryasheva. International competition named after Vera Lothar-Shevchenko. In general, it is impossible to list all the people to whom I feel enormous gratitude. Here are a few more names. After Armavir, I studied at the Moscow Variety Jazz School with Mikhail Moiseevich Okun. He helped shape me as a jazz musician. From professors Rostov Conservatory I can’t help but mention Vladimir Samuilovich Daich, a classical piano teacher. And now I’m studying in graduate school with Professor Margarita Petrovna Chernykh, a chamber ensemble specialist. I also teach at the jazz department of the Rostov College of Arts, which is headed by a magnificent musician and my friend, double bassist Adam Teratsuyan. The meeting with Igor Mikhailovich Butman turned out to be very important for me. It was he who opened the world to me as a touring artist. Is it possible to forget wonderful concerts, where we performed with such giants as Wynton Marsalis, Chick Corea, Robert Glesper and other world-class jazz stars.

— You also performed before the Pope?

— Yes, but I didn’t play, but sang in the Vatican in 2003. The choir of Viktor Sergeevich Popov and two more soloists took part in that trip. We performed the 140th Psalm of King David, “Let my prayer be corrected,” its famous version written by composer Pavel Chesnokov. Our performance created a sensation. Pope John Paul II thanked me in three languages ​​- Russian, Polish and Italian - for singing well.

—Where is your favorite audience?

— Even when you play the same program, in different cities of the world you are greeted in a special way, they expect something special from you, close to this particular audience. You can feel it from the stage. I like the public of St. Petersburg, they are warm, educated and intelligent. But the closest thing to me is still the Moscow public. Hospitable, enthusiastic and at the same time demanding, well versed in music. When the Svetlanov Hall of the House of Music applauds you, believe me, it’s worth a lot.

— I heard that you are going to participate in the Tchaikovsky competition?

“I would really like this, but I can’t say yet whether it will work.” A lot has to come together.

— Oleg, what qualities of character or soul led you to success - if, of course, we talk about the main thing?

— If about the main thing, then it is the love of music. I really live by her, and she often reciprocates my feelings, I feel her gratitude. And I also love to work. At a concert at the House of Music, I sang my ballad based on Zabolotsky’s poems, “The Soul Must Work.” These words are my motto. Musician's work - burlatsky labor. As the brilliant pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein said, “you need to practice music 20 hours a day without a break.” I try to follow this advice.