At that time I lived and studied in St. Petersburg and spent my vacation in Kursk. We had some instruments, but almost no equipment, actually, just like now. The band finances have always consisted of our own personal budgets. Our friends have helped us many times by giving their instruments and letting us use their facilities and equipment. These were happy times, really!

The change of the name has to do with the new musicians. The only person who has been playing with me since those times is Yuri Skripkin (drums). I never really liked the name “Paradox”, because it did not reflect the essence of my music that I wanted to play. The music of “Little Tragedies” is the music of extreme situations, from the most tragic to the most lightful, from the most infernal to the most heavenly.

Among the conservatory graduates let us distinguish between instrumentalists and composers. I know examples of instrumentalist musicians who are trying to compose music… However, it doesn’t go beyond performing techniques. Skillful musicianship is excellent and keeps your attention for a while. But then you feel like you want to hear some intellectual work and quality development of the material. And here the talent is not enough, this is what students learn at the composition department. I studied in St. Petersburg and I wouldn’t be able to tell you about the other institutions.

Oh, this is very difficult. I have tried to do it a few times. It is very time-consuming, and most importantly, I don’t believe that such information by itself can attract listeners attention. Only if you listened to the music first and liked it makes you go and read about it. I think we have enough information about the band available at our website in the History section, and most recent activity can be found in the News. All our albums are listed there with their details, and you can also listen to the samples and form your own opinion.

True, “The Sun of the Spirit“ and “Porcelain Pavilion“ were meant to be my solo albums. But during the recording session I was joined by my friend and ex-guitarist of “Paradox” Igor Mikhel and the sound engineer Eugene Shchukin (the latter has done so much for these recordings that he became a full-fledged member of the team). There had been no CD released with the name of “Little Tragedies” by that time, so we felt free to use it. To put it simply, “Little Tragedies” is where I am.

Poetry is my inspiration for the music. At certain times I happened to hold different collections of poems which appealed to me, and new albums followed. These were poems of Russian poets or translations of Chinese poets, etc. Our latest works for the international Colossus-Musea compilations were inspired by the film “The Great Silence”, Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” and Edgar Poe’s story “The Man of the Crowd”. And I think my music quite closely depicts the contents of these texts as I understand them.

Our publishing experience is not very big. The labels we have cooperated with include Boheme, Musea and Mals. I am a musician and not a businessman, that’s why I don’t feel like commenting on it.

Almost all our albums can be purchased through mail-order systems on the Web and, as far as I know, in most countries of the world. There are also special websites where you can download and listen to our albums for free. It was difficult to get used to this practice in the beginning, but now I take it positively. Thank God, people have interest to listen! That’s what our distribution is about.

It’s difficult to say. I left Kursk when I was 20 and now I only come to rehearsals, recording sessions and to see my mother. I was more influenced by the atmosphere of St. Petersburg where I lived for 10 years – the discipline of the Conservatory, a very well structured curriculum, the architecture of St. Petersburg with its straight streets where, as Shostakovich said, “even the stones teach”. I know about and remember the bloodshed in my home town, but I was rather molded by the Russian and foreign classical literature, philosophy and music.

Tech talk: I have heard you are into MiniMoog and Hammond organs. Please tell us more about your equipments.

I teach piano and keyboard to children and adults, also trying to cultivate good taste for music. And since I work in contact with classical music almost every day, over the years my heart has been leaning towards it. Yes, I also love rock-n-roll, but I am beginning the see a gap between it and classical music. Rock-n-roll attracted with its dancing rhythm, showing-off and provocative style, no technical difficulties in playing, availability, etc., but we shouldn’t pretend that there had been no music before. And I think, in the contemporary situation, you have to be a well-educated and a well-informed musician in order to find new ways of how rock-n-roll can develop. I would be interested in combining the simplicity of the melody in rock-n-roll with the complexity of the form, harmony and rhythm in classical music. So Little Tragedies is really my main occupation in life, but it is not my job.

We haven’t had much luck with concerts so far. But we constantly work on the new material. We have just submitted our new tracks for Colossus-Musea projects “Paradiso” and “To the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe”. Now we are mixing the “Obsessed” album recorded in August 2009. At the same time I am working on the new album called “In the Night”. I already have 10 tracks, for which I am now writing the scores and sending them to the band. The next on the recording list is, actually, an instrumental album called “Scenes from the Gospel” composed a few years ago and written down in the score. So we have things to do.

Listen to classical music and pursue self-education !

Thank you to Gennady Ilyin for this interview.

As you can see, I have put in the cover arts for their albums in this interview to trigger your interest in the band (but I ran out of albums towards the end).  

Little Tragedies PA profile can be found http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2055 - and their can be found http://www.littletragedies.com/ -

.......and I cannot help myself for ending this interview with this stunning painting by Ilya Repin (1844-1930). It describe a religious procession in Kursk. Enjoy !