Yevgeny Kazanovsky (*1937) got his first music education in the Choir College at the Leningrad State Academic M. I. Glinka Kapelle. Then there was the Moscow Institute of Military Conductors, the composition class in the Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) Conservatoire. More than thirty years were given by Kazanovsky to military ensembles. He served as the art director of the Singing and Dancing Ensemble at the Pacific Navy and Baltic Command. Today he holds the post of the Singing and Dancing Ensemble at the Western Command.

Yevgeny Kazanovsky, People’s Artist of Russia, professor of the St. Petersburg N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatoire, mature master, high professional and a wonderful composer. Different genres are numbered among his creative baggage: the symphony and orchestra compositions, choral cycles and music for theatre, songs and plentiful arrangements for orchestra and choir, music for children.

This collection of jazz pieces displays different steps of perfo rming skill. Some of the miniatures (Nocturne, Summer Morning, Merry Clown and Jazz Waltz) are presented as the versions for 2 and 4 hands correspondingly. Ensemble texture turns these pieces to large-scaled compositions, where the spheres of melody and harmony are revealed together with concealed polyphony and supporting voices.

Vivid titles stir imagination making for expressive interpretations. Thus performers resort to main jazz devices: syncopations, sequences, rhythms, improvisation, so as the harmony and melody fluctuations.

Hopefully, these diverse pieces will be a success both in solo and ensemble performances.

Yevgeny Kazanovsky

Contents:

Jazz Pieces for piano in 2 hands
1. Promenade
2. Curiosity
3. Breeze
4. Contrasts
5. Nocturne
6. Springy Little Ball
7. Melancholy Girl
8. Sunray Reflection
9. Good Humour
10. Summer Morning
11. I Am Swinging
12. Merry Clown
13. This Short Drea