Alexey Shor is an American composer. He is the Composer-in-Residence for the
Armenian State Symphony Orchestra
The Armenian State Symphony Orchestra (ASSO) is the national symphony orchestra of Armenia, founded by Armenian conductor Sergey Smbatyan in 2005, as the State Youth Orchestra of Armenia. It became the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra in 2018. A ...
, and an associate composer at the
Yehudi Menuhin School. In 2018 he was awarded an honorary professorship at the
Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory
Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan ( hy, Երևանի Կոմիտասի անվան պետական կոնսերվատորիա), also known as Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory (YKSC) or Yerevan State Conservatory (YSC), is a state-owned college ...
.
Biography
Shor was born Alexey Vladimorovich Kononenko in the
Ukrainian SSR (now
Ukraine). In 1991, he left the Soviet Union for Israel with his parents. Subsequently, he moved to the US for his graduate studies and obtained a PhD in mathematics in 1996. He worked as a mathematician until 2016 (geometry, dynamic systems). From 1999 until 2016 he worked for the
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
hedge fund
Renaissance Technologies
Renaissance Technologies LLC, also known as RenTech or RenTec, is an American hedge fund based in East Setauket, New York, on Long Island, which specializes in systematic trading using quantitative models derived from mathematical and statisti ...
.
Since he was a child, Alexey loved classical music. He tried his hand at composing in 2012 and started writing short pieces as a hobby. One day his friend, viola player
David Aaron Carpenter
David Aaron Carpenter is an American violist and was the first Prize Winner of the 2006 Walter W. Naumburg Viola Competition. Along with his two siblings, the trio perform as The Carpenters, and the family, including their mother, run a family bu ...
saw one of his scores on Alexey's desk. He loved Shor's piece.
Alexey's works have been showcased in some of the world's most renowned concert venues, such as the
Wiener Musikverein,
Berlin Philharmonie
The Berliner Philharmonie () is a concert hall in Berlin, Germany, and home to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
The Philharmonie lies on the south edge of the city's Tiergarten and just west of the former Berlin Wall. The Philharmonie is on ...
,
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...
, the
Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., The
Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Munich's
Gasteig
Gasteig is a cultural center in Munich, opened in 1985, which hosts the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. The Richard Strauss Conservatory, the Volkshochschule, and the municipal library are all located in the Gasteig. Most of the events of the Fi ...
, London's
Wigmore Hall, Rome's
Teatro Argentina, among others.
Shor's scores have been published by esteemed publishers such as
Breitkopf & Härtel, Universal Edition and
P. Jurgenson.
His compositions have been featured on CDs released by major labels including
Warner Classics,
DECCA,
Sony Classics
Sony Pictures Classics Inc. is an American film production and distribution company that is a division of Sony Pictures. It was founded in 1992 by former Orion Classics heads Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloom. It distributes, produc ...
,
Delos
The island of Delos (; el, Δήλος ; Attic: , Doric: ), near Mykonos, near the centre of the Cyclades archipelago, is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. The excavations in the island are ...
, Berlin Classics, and
Melodiya.
Performances featuring his music have been aired on platforms like
Medici.tv, Mezzo, and
Euronews
Euronews (styled on-air in lowercase as euronews) is a European television news network, headquartered in Lyon, France. The network began broadcasting on 1 January 1993 and covers world news from a European perspective.
The majority of Eurone ...
. The overture to his ballet, “Crystal Palace,” was performed at the 40th
Gramophone Classical Music Awards
The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and refer ...
event in London. In 2019, a documentary about Alexey Shor was showcased on Medici.tv.
Shor's works have been performed by many internationally acclaimed soloists and ensembles, such as (in alphabetical order) Behzod Abduraimov, Salvatore Accardo, Ray Chen, Steven Isserlis, Clara-Jumi Kang, Evgeny Kissin, Denis Kozukhin, Shlomo Mintz, Mikhail Pletnev, Gil Shaham, Yeol Eum Son, Yekwon Sunwoo, Maxim Vengerov, Nikolaj Znaider and many others.
Notes
References
Further reading
* Hugh Morris, Jeffrey Arlo Brown:
Welcome to Shorworld', VAN Magazine, 11 Sep 2024
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shor, Alexey
21st-century American composers
21st-century American mathematicians
Moscow State University alumni
Ukrainian emigrants to the United States
1970 births
Living people