Grigoriev, Igor Pavlovich

Born October 21, 1966 in Taganrog . He spent his childhood and adolescence in the village of Lacedemonovka in a family of peasants.

He studied at the Faculty of Foreign Languages ​​(Department of French) at the Taganrog State Pedagogical Institute . Arrived in Moscow in the summer of 1987 ^[6] and entered the Moscow State Institute of International Relations at the full-time faculty of international relations (specializing in Thailand and Thai ).

As a student and taking advantage of the privileges afforded by membership in the Komsomol committee of the institute, he organized the first concerts of semi-legal Soviet groups and musicians such as Bravo , Team S , Igor Talkov , Sergey Penkin on the stage of the MGIMO Assembly Hall. There he met Zhanna Aguzarova , who helped him enter the circle of the then show business .

Since 1988, he began to combine studies with the work of concert director Irina Ponarovskaya .

In 1991, he left his studies at MGIMO and worked in show business for the sake of journalism.

Igor Grigoriev’s ascension in journalism began in September 1991 with the publication in the newspaper “Peasant News” of an article about actress Tatyana Samoilova , who at that time was completely oblivious. The article had a wide resonance, after which Igor accepted from the weekly journal “ Arguments and Facts ” an offer to take the post of editor of the department of culture. As an editor, Grigoriev covered a new youth alternative culture emerging in the country.

In 1993, he met with show businessman Boris Zosimov , with whom he published Russia's first thick glossy magazine Imperial ^[7] .

After the release of several issues, he left Imperial and in 1994 headed the first Russian glossy magazine for men, Amadeus ^[8] .

In May 1995, he began work on the journal OM . The publication of the magazine in November 1995 was an event in the Russian periodicals market. For five years in a row, the magazine was awarded the title of the best magazine of the year by professional journalists (Professional Award for Musical Mass Media “Quality Mark”). In 1997, the magazine was awarded the National Ovation Prize in the category "Best Journal of the Year" ^[9] .

In November 1998, Grigoryev resigned as chief editor of the magazine. His planned departure from the magazine back in the spring coincided with a severe economic crisis that erupted in the country.

The Russian press commented on the departure of Igor Grigoryev from the OM magazine: ^[10]

He was one of the first to express his era. Apparently, Grigoriev himself felt his vulnerability to the modern world so much that he began to make a magazine that would help him first of all, and then we could figure out this world, at least formalize his knowledge about it ... For three years he was the main editor of the most provocative and tough publication on the Russian market. Apparently, he suddenly realized that he was tired and exhausted himself ... " ( Arguments and Facts , November 1999)

Policy

In December 1998, he founded the All-Russian Public Political Movement “Generation of Freedom” ^[11] . At the Constituent Congress, he was elected Chairman of the Movement Council. The main goal of its activity, the movement considered working with youth on the principles of perception of freedom, as the highest value. The movement united both young politicians, who belonged earlier to different political blocs, and young cultural figures who showed interest in social and political activities. In December 1999, the Movement became part of the Bear Association, three candidates from the movement were elected as deputies of the State Duma of the third convocation. Igor Grigoryev himself left the movement due to a conflict within the top management.

In May 1999, Igor settled in the city of Prague ^[12] . He was a co-owner of a small cafe in the city center, which became famous as a place for informal meetings for employees of the Radio Liberty station , whose headquarters were in Prague ^[13] .

Television and Cinema

In 1999 he returned to Moscow at the invitation of the general producer of the TV-6 channel, Ivan Demidov .

In May 2000, the weekly infotainment program “ Saturday Night Fever with Igor Grigoryev ” began to appear on the channel ^[14] . The program lasted on air until November 2000.

After leaving television, Igor made films, wrote scripts, made videos for Russian performers. Among the famous works of Igor Grigoriev as a director are clips for Dmitry Malikov (Beads ^[15] ) and the Mumiy Troll group (“Come, I will” ^[16] ).

In March 2003, he began shooting the television series Twin Twix in his own script. The pilot of the series received enthusiastic responses from professionals. Director Andron Konchalovsky compared Grigoryev’s film to Tim Burton’s Beetle Juice and agreed to produce the series for NTV . The then head of the channel Nikolai Senkevich signed a contract for ten episodes with Grigoriev, but work on the series was suspended due to lack of funding.

Resuscitation of the OM Magazine

In 2003, Igor made an attempt to reanimate OM magazine and returned to the chair of the chief editor. The attempt was unsuccessful. In September 2004, the last issue of the magazine was published, on the cover of which was a portrait of “tormented and mutilated” Philip Kirkorov , against whom a criminal case was opened on the fact of the incident, known as the “pink blouse scandal” . The takeaway on the cover of the last issue read: “We will all die once” ^[17] . After some time, the magazine was finally closed as unprofitable.

In 2005, Igor Grigoriev, together with the general producer of Russian Fashion Week Alexander Shumsky, produced the first Russian national prize in the field of fashion and style “Astra” ^[18] .

In 2006, he left Russia and settled in Rio de Janeiro . From June 2006 to May 2010, under the pseudonym tchatski, he kept a network diary in which he published reports on his travels ^[19] .

Black and White Orchestra

In 2008, after a ten-year hiatus, Igor Grigoriev returned to active creative activity with a musical project, the idea of ​​which he had hatched in recent years. Igor founded the Black-and-White Orchestra (BWC), a musical group that performs famous jazz pieces in modern, sometimes unexpected arrangements. Grigoriev, as a soloist of the orchestra, was characterized by a specific hoarse voice, a decadent image on stage and theatricality of performances. Grigoriev himself defined the genre in which he performed as an “indie cabaret”.

The first performance of the BWC took place on September 7, 2008 at the opening of the Eurasia International Film Festival in Astana in the building of the famous "pyramid" of Norman Foster - the Palace of Peace and Concord . The presentation of the orchestra with the program “Third Live / When I was 21” took place on October 21, 2008 in Moscow ^[20] .

In December 2008, Igor Grigoryev dissolved his Black-and-White Orchestra and began a solo career.

In January 2009, while in Rio de Janeiro, he met with the outstanding Brazilian saxophonist, composer and producer Leo Gandelman. In October 2009, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as part of the IV-th international CityJazz festival ^[21] , Igor Grigoriev performed with the band Leo Gandelman performing a program of classical songs by the Brazilian bossa nova .

Solo career

In September 2010, the Internet portal OpenSpace.ru presented the special project “Igor Grigoryev in the open space” ^[22] , in which Igor Grigoryev talked about his progress in the musical field as an author and performer of his own songs. In June 2011, the last column was released, in which the artist summed up the past ten months and said goodbye to the readers of the portal.

On November 22, 2010, the premiere of the debut video for the song “Dreams of My Spring” took place, which caused a stormy and controversial audience response ^[23] . For ten days in a row, the video clip was in the top five most viewed videos of the Russian YouTube ^[24] . The newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda” called the video clip “Dreams of My Spring” the clip of the year ^[25] . In 2011, the video was nominated for the Artemy Troitsky Prize "Steppe Wolf" in the "Best Video" category.

February 22, 2011 the international premiere of the song “Dreams of My Spring” took place at the pre-carnival ball in Rio de Janeiro, accompanied by the legendary Brazilian Orquestra Imperial orchestra ^[26] . Thus, Igor Grigoriev became the first Russian artist to take part in the official program of the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro ^[27] .

In April 2011, he released the second official video for the song “Tango”, written on the verses of the poet- Oberiut Alexander Vvedensky ^[28] .

In June 2011, the first appearance on television in the program Alex Dubas “Moments” on the channel “Rain” ^[29] .

On June 24, 2011, the first solo concert was held in Moscow, timed to coincide with the release of the single "Dreams of My Spring". The event was overshadowed by an accident - in the middle of the concert the artist stumbled and fell from a two-meter stage onto the dance floor, having received an ankle fracture ^[30] . Nevertheless, with a broken leg, Igor finished the program of the concert ^[31] .

In November 2011, he began recording his debut album with the working title “My Spring Dreams” at Strongroom, RAK Studios and Abbey Road Studios in London ^[32] . The record producer for the album was British producer and sound engineer Haydn Bendall ^[33] . The album includes 14 songs written by Igor Grigoriev from March to December 2010. One of the songs on the album was recorded in a duet with the famous Brazilian singer, Latin Grammy Award winner Vanessa da Mata.

The premiere of the third official video clip for the song “Stupid Love” took place on the Dozhd TV channel in June 2012 ^[34] . The song and video, in which Igor expressed his protest mood regarding the current socio-political situation in the country, received positive reviews from music critics and fellow musicians. Igor Grigoryev himself was nominated for the second year in a row for the Steppe Wolf prize , this time in the Something category.

Two Stars

The beginning of 2012 was marked by the participation of Igor Grigoryev in the next fourth season of the show of the First Channel “Two Stars” , in which he performed in an unexpected duet with the chanson diva Lyubov Uspenskaya ^[35] .

“The“ Two Stars ”project on Channel One has repeatedly crossed already with a hedgehog, receiving duets of varying degrees of amusement at the output. However, this time the tandem turned out to be irrevocably stunning: Igor Grigoriev, who recently completed the recording of his debut album in London, and the chanson diva Lyubov Uspenskaya ”( Afisha Journal, February 2012) ^[36]

During the season, Igor Grigoriev performed on the air of Channel One the songs of his own composition “Dreams of My Spring”, “Tango” and “Roses Do Not Speak”. According to the composer and producer Igor Matvienko , who was a member of the jury, the music of Grigoriev was “a new word in the genre of show business on Channel One ” ^[37] . Of particular interest in the show was fueled by the conflict between Igor Grigoryev and another jury member, composer and producer Viktor Drobysh , who accused the Channel One leadership of ineptly wasting airtime on Grigoryev’s “no one needs” songs ^[38] . The low jury ratings provoked by Viktor Drobysh lowered the couple Grigoryev-Uspenskaya to the very bottom of the standings. In order to keep the couple in the project, according to the rules of which the artists who score the least points are eliminated from participation in the competition, Channel One introduced new rules for the game, announcing that no couple will leave the show until its end. The newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda” called the couple Grigoryev - Uspenskaya “the most impudent couple” of the project ^[39] .

Another scandal erupted after Andrei Razin sued Igor Grigoryev, Lyubov Uspenskaya and Channel One leadership for unauthorized performance of the song “White Roses”, which he is the copyright holder ^[40] .

Cornucopia Album (2013)

On September 24, 2013, the debut album Cornucopia was released. The album was released by Universal Music Group International and has been featured on all international platforms of the iTunes Store . On the first day of sales, it entered the top ten albums of the Russian branch of iTunes.

The Cornucopia album consists of 13 songs written by Igor Grigoryev alone or in collaboration with other authors. The album's songs are genre and stylistically different from each other. In the booklet for the album Igor writes: “This album has no concept. It’s rather a collection of songs that I wrote in one breath, in one rush, in one sitting in the spring of 2010. " By this time, Igor had finally returned to Moscow from Rio de Janeiro, where he had lived the previous few years. The author himself claims that the creation of such an eclectic album was inspired by “tropicaly” , a Brazilian musical movement of the late 60s, the main principle of which was the mixing of traditional music with the avant-garde, rock and roll, psychedelic and other styles, that is, the union of incompatible musical phenomena, which should result in something new.

The name of the album is nothing but the Latin name of the Horn of Plenty , an ancient symbol of wealth, fertility and prosperity, a horn full of gifts of nature and diverse values.

“Cornucopia” is, of course, a camp, burlesque, an alloy of low and high, a swing. ... How songs in the style of cabaret, chanson, samba, gypsy music are pouring from the cornucopia into the head of the listener - one continuous cruel romance. ... Cosmopolitan, a man of the world who traveled him far and wide, from the snowy peaks of the Himalayas to the hot sand of the beaches of Ipanema, Grigoryev remains faithful to his Russian roots, which stretch into the village near Taganrog with a wonderful name - Lakedemonovka, where he grew up. But it was in Brazil that Grigoriev was born as an artist - he pays tribute to her in the Russian-language cover of Kartola's samba “Roses Don't Speak,” sung in a duet with Brazilian singer Vanessa da Mata. It was from there, from Rio de Janeiro, that he returned to Ostap Bender. ... But you need to understand that, having embodied in an artist, next to whom many of the recognized and successful fade away, Igor completed a real personal feat, his leap into the impossible - this would not have happened if years of tireless self-improvement were not behind all this. And no matter how interesting Cornucopia is, Grigoriev, more than what he wrote down, is a masterpiece by himself. ” Andrei Bukharin, Rolling Stone magazine, October 2013 ) ^[41]

On October 22, on the big stage of the Gogol Center , the presentation of the album and the premiere of the musical performance “Igor Grigoryev. Cornucopia ”based on the songs of the album ^[42] . Summing up the year 2013, the Afisha magazine included the album in the list of 25 best Russian records of the year ^[43] , and the Colta.ru portal named Cornukopia among the 19 best albums of the year ^[44] .

The fifth official video clip for the song “I Love Nobody” from the album “Cornucopia” to the verses of Mikhail Lermontov was released on October 15, 2014 in the anniversary of the poet, who turned 200 years old. The song was also included in the anniversary tribute album "Lermontov 200 on the counter . "

The Dark Corner mini-album and the Sophomore album

In October 2014, Igor Grigoryev began recording the second album with the working title “Soffomor”. The name of the album is the English word for sophomore, which means "second in a row, second in a series." According to the artist, the emphasis in the album will be on soft intellectual electronics with delicate interspersing of live instruments and the extensive use of female vocal parts. Portal Colta.ru included "Sofomor" in the top ten most anticipated Russian albums of 2015 ^[45] .

In November 2015, under the anagram GRIGORIEV, a mini-album (EP) “Dark Corner” was released, which included 5 tracks from the album “Sofomor” ^[46] .

“Igor Grigoryev's debut album“ Cornucopia ”was one camp burlesque, and the singer himself appeared both at social events and in front of the audience of Channel One. Now the artist took into account the lessons of a too colorful debut, these couple of years he worked, so to speak, cutting off the excess. Grigoriev’s new songs were created under the clear impression of thin, quiet bands of the 80s, like the Blue Nile, finding themselves somewhere at night at the crossroads of foggy Scottish sophistry pop and the delicate, ghostly post-trip-hop electronics. ” Andrei Bukharin, Rolling Stone magazine, November 2015 ^[47]

The release of the full-length album was announced in the spring of 2016, but has not yet taken place and there is no information about the album.

• Two days after birth, he was abandoned by his mother in the maternity hospital of the city of Taganrog and adopted by new parents at the age of two weeks.
• After school, he entered the famous “Kiev intelligence school” - the Kiev Higher Combined Arms Command School - specializing in “military intelligence”.
• Married to Kuatbaeva Aiken Kunsainovna, film producer. No kids.
• In 1997, he starred in the lead role of the Vampire in the video clip of Lika “The Lonely Moon”.
• In April 2008, starred in the movie screen version of the cult novel by V. Pelevin " Generation" P " ", directed by Victor Ginzburg ^[54] . The film was released in the spring of 2011 ^[55] .
• In December 2008, through his blog in LiveJournal, he announced the completion of a journalistic career that had lasted 17 years ^[56] .
• In March 2009 and March 2010, GQ Russia magazine twice included Igor Grigoriev in the top ten most stylish men in Russia ^[1] .

• OM magazine

His journalistic colleagues wrote about the journalistic and editorial activities of Igor Grigoriev.

• Wulf, A. Yu. In bed. - M.: Eksmo, 2001 .-- S. 640. - ISBN 5-04-007568-5 .
• Kushanashvili, O. Sh. Epoch and Y. Chronicles of a bully. - M.: AST: Astrel, 2011 .-- S. 320. - ISBN 978-5-17-075492-2 , ISBN 978-5-271-37773-0 .

• igorgrigorev.com - Igor Grigoryev official site
• Igor Grigoriev's official page on the social network Facebook
• Igor Grigoryev 's video channel on YouTube
• Igor Grigoryev about the meaning of tinsel, games in the revolution and the lost generation (neopr.) (Inaccessible link) . Fastcult (November 14, 2013). Date of treatment November 15, 2013. Archived November 17, 2013.