About

Nikolai Khrust is a graduate and former faculty member of the Moscow Conservatory, where he served as associate professor. As a composer he has received numerous awards, including the Moscow Art Prize (2021), and his music has been performed internationally at venues like the Venice Biennale, Konzerthaus Berlin, and in cities across Europe. Khrust has collaborated with ensembles such as MCME, Studio for New Music Moscow, de Ereprijs, and Ensemble Aleph, with recordings on Melodiya and broadcasts on Russian radio. His multimedia work has been commissioned by institutions such as the Garage Museum, GRAME (Lyon) and CIRM (Nice). Since relocating to France in 2022, Khrust continues to develop new projects and upcoming residencies, including at Château de Goutelas. Khrust’s work in electronic and computer music performance extends to Russian premieres of significant electroacoustic works, including Luigi Nono’s Das Atmende Klarsein (Moscow Forum, 2011). As an improviser, he has appeared in various venues, from Moscow's House of Composers to clubs in Russia and Ukraine. He founded the King Bee electronic-instrumental ensemble and the Octopus improvisation ensemble, both performing new music and improvisation. In music education, Khrust has contributed extensively, curating electroacoustic programs at the Moscow Conservatory and the Young Composers Academy in Tchaikovsky-city, lecturing and teaching across institutions such as Moscow State University and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. Since 2022, Khrust resides in France.

Skills

  • Music Composition
    10
  • Sound design
    10
  • Computer Music Design
    10
  • music theory
    9
  • Music Teaching
    10
  • Music Scoring
    10
  • Piano playing
    6
  • flute
    2
  • clarinet
    2
  • bass guitar
    2
  • Playing Guitar
    1
  • artistic direction of chamber ensembles
    7
  • Music Typefaces Designing
    10
  • English
    9
  • Russian (native)
    10
  • French
    5
  • German
    1

Experience

Nikolaï Khrust

Education
  • PhD thesis defence.

Nikolaï Khrust

Work experience
  • Created two ensembles comprising instrumentalists and performers on musical electronics; the ensembles performed concerts, including appearances at the Moscow Conservatory.
  • The ensemble of improvisers “Octopus” was featured on Dmitry Ukhov’s radio broadcast on Radio “Kultura”, excerpts from their performances were aired.
  • Organized the Russian premiere of “Das Atmende Klarsein” by L. Nono for small choir, bass flute, and electronics (see section “Computer music Design...”) on the “Moscow Forum” festival; this performance remains the only one in Russia.

Nikolaï Khrust

Work experience
  • Designer of Typefaces with Musical Symbols at   Freelance
  • The Kh musical fonts project has been created: it consists of 48 musical fonts, over 2700 unique characters, numerous accompanying files integrating fonts into music software (distributed free of charge)
  • The project received a grant from the Russian Presidential Grants Foundation
  • The fonts used for typesetting numerous contemporary scores, including those for Sikorski Publishing

Nikolaï Khrust

Work experience
  • Served as a permanent curator of electroacoustic music for the Young Composers Academy of the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble in Tchaikovsky city (lectured, helped composers program the electronics part in their compositions, performed it at Academy concerts; 2019–2022).
  • Created an educational project in collaboration with colleagues — the School-Laboratory of Contemporary Music — and became its artistic director; the project received support from the Presidential Grants Foundation: children and adolescents studied contemporary music composition and multimedia; held 3 sessions in various cities of Russia, 45 youths completed the course, some of them continued their musical and compositional education and careers.
  • Several times served as a curator-teacher for “Composers’ Reading Sessions” in various cities of Russia (an initiative of the Union of Composers of Russia).
  • Gave lectures and presentations, for example, at the Kyiv Music Academy, was an invited lecturer at the CEAMMC Multimedia Lab (Moscow), and at performance master classes of the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble.
  • Taught music to children for many years at summer camps and children’s creativity festivals; during the summer, N. Khrust’s music studio could prepare over a hundred performances of a very wide repertoire: from contemporary pop to Renaissance music and traditional music of various countries; also performed as an accompanist.
  • Developed an online music course for amateurs (together with G. Gromov) and taught this course several times; students of this course created dozens of compositions.
  • Collected (together with his stepfather K. Mulin) a personal collection of over 300 musical instruments, learned to play many of them, taught his students to play, and created amateur educational ensembles using his instruments.
  • Read reports, public lectures for wide audiences, workshops for amateurs at various educational events:
  • — Science Festival of Moscow State University,
  • — Garage Museum for Contemporary Art (Moscow),
  • — Meyerhold Centre Moscow (he was its artist in residency in 2013–2022)
  • — Science Festival of Moscow State University,
  • — Dovzhenko Centre Kyiv etc.

Nikolaï Khrust

Work experience
  • Managed the sound engineering console for dozens of chamber academic music concerts featuring electronics and unconventional tasks (complex sound processing, amplification, etc.).
  • Operated the mixing console as a “universal sound engineer” for over 150 club-type concerts, mostly amateur and children’s ensembles.
  • Worked as a playback operator for approximately 80 commercial shows in large concert halls (about 6000 attendees).
  • Directed the sound and lighting departments in the staged performance of a composition by Jani Christou at the “Platforma” festival (conducted by T. Currentzis), interpreting the score as a musician; consulted the conductor.

Nikolaï Khrust

Work experience
  • Created interactive and self-generating sound, video-sound, and light-sound programs for installations by artists Dm. Kawarga, A. Koleichuk, V. Koleichuk; these installations were exhibited in Moscow, Zagreb (World New Music Days), Heidelberg, Granada, and Linz (Ars Electronica).
  • Developed a sound-light program for V. Koleichuk's street installation “Atom” commissioned by the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, replacing the lost soundtrack originally created by Leon Theremin; the new installation was displayed in central Moscow at Gorky Park for about five months, day and night.
  • Worked as a computer music designer at the long-running “Platform” festival in Moscow (directed by Kirill Serebrennikov): created synthesizers, samplers, and managed musical electronics, performing works by Jani Christou, Giacinto Scelsi, Peter Ablinger, Helmut Oehring, Simon Steen-Andersen, Øyvind Torvund, Sergej Newski, Alexey Syumak, Ondřej Adámek, and others in concerts.
  • Performed frequently as an electronic musician with renowned Russian orchestras and ensembles (Studio for New Music, MCME, etc.) on tours in Russia and abroad (Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music, Venice Biennale, etc.), performing works by Russian and international composers (Franck Bedrossian, Kaija Saariaho...), including premieres.
  • Executed and participated in premieres of several major compositions, becoming the only performances in Russia:
  • — Russian premiere of Luigi Nono’s “Das Atmende Klarsein” for bass flute, choir, and electronics at the “Moscow Forum” festival: organized the performance, created the electronic program, and performed the electronic part;
  • — created electronic instruments for Alexander Wustin’s opera “The Love for Three Oranges” and performed on them at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre;
  • — participated in the performance of Kaija Saariaho’s oratorio “La Passion de Simone” at the Novaya Opera theatre.
  • Created sound design/soundtracks for:
  • — exhibitions at the Russian Literature Museum, displayed in various locations in Moscow and at the Friedrich Ebert Center in Heidelberg;
  • plays and festivals; the lecture-performance “Text in Motion” with his sound accompaniment was shown on Red Square;
  • — a joint project by Google and Mosfilm “Master and Margarita. I was there”, a live online theatrical reading of Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” in various cities across Russia;
  • — the film “Silent Word” (directed by G. Shestakov), which won a prize at the III Savva Morozov Film Festival.
  • Briefly worked at the commercial company “Sound Service”, creating audio programs for retail spaces (clients included well-known Russian retailers and other companies).
  • Developed numerous computer programs for sound synthesis and processing, discovered and implemented new sound synthesis strategies (presented scientific reports on these topics at conferences).
  • Collaborated with prominent Russian conductors: Vladimir Jurowski, Teodor Currentzis, Valentin Uryupin, Igor Dronov, Maxim Emelyanychev, Philipp Chizhevsky, Fyodor Lednev, Dmitry Matvienko.

Nikolaï Khrust

Work experience
  • September, 2008 - September, 2022
  • Fulltime
  • 15 years of teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, Department of Contemporary Music: a full-time faculty member since 2009, and an associate professor from 2019 to 2022 (subjects: 20th–21st century music, 20th–21st century repertoire for strings, winds, and percussion, electronic music, music notation and editing).
  • Developed a number of contemporary music courses that have been successfully implemented and are currently taught at the Conservatory.
  • Created an online platform with educational materials to help students master lecture content.
  • Has numerous students, many of whom have successfully continued their careers as composers and in related professions, as well as pursued further education.
  • Ph. D. thesis “The Extended Techniques: The Experience of Classification”, dedicated to extended techniques on musical instruments, their classification, timbre systematization, and notation (nearly 500 pages). The theory presented in this work is taught to students at several Russian universities, including the Moscow Conservatory.
  • 14 scholarly articles focused on extended techniques, notation issues, and the phenomenology of musical form; articles published in reputable peer-reviewed Russian scientific journals.
  • Reviewed scholarly articles and dissertations for academic journals and the Department of Contemporary Music at the Moscow Conservatory upon request.
  • Presented reports at various academic conferences.
  • Supervised the work of a young researcher in the assistantship-internship program at the Moscow Conservatory.

Nikolaï Khrust

Work experience
  • wrote reviews and overview articles in journals:
  • “Muzykalnaya Zhizn” (‘Musical Life’),
  • “Muzykalnaya Akademiya” (‘Musical Academy’),
  • “Tribuna Sovremennoy Muzyki” (‘Tribune of Contemporary Music’),
  • “Rossiyskiy Muzykant” (‘Russian Musician’),
  • “Muzykalnoye Obozreniye” (‘Musical Review’)

Nikolaï Khrust

Education
  • Composition (prof. V. Tarnopolski),
  • Scientific research (prof. T. Tsaregradskaya)

Nikolaï Khrust

Work experience
  • Over 40 compositions for various ensembles: from solo to orchestra, from “pure” music to multimedia works, interactive installations, and sound design for theater and film.
  • Winner of numerous composition competitions and awards, including the III Moscow Art Prize (the first time the Prize was awarded for a musical composition), as well as Open Space (1st prize), Jurgenson Competition (twice), Radio Orpheus Competition (1st prize).
  • Victories, participation and performances in other composition events: Call for Scores, commission competitions, etc.: “Notes and Quotes” by the Russian Composers Union (2022), VIII International Young Composers Academy in Tchaikovsky-city (2018), ISCM World Music Days (2011), 6th International Forum for Young Composers of Ensemble Aleph (2006, France), Young Composers Meeting by De Ereprijs Ensemble (2005, Netherlands) etc.
  • Composer residencies: planned — Château de Goutelas (2025; Loire, France); passed: electroacoustic centres GRAME (Lyon) and CIRM (Nice) as part of the Year of France in Russia and Russia in France (2010);
  • Performances of compositions at numerous contemporary music festivals, including “Young Euro Classic” (Berlin, Konzerthaus), Venice Biennale, Darmstadt International Summer Course for New Music, ISCM World New Music Days, Biennale “Musique en Scène” (Lyon), MANCA (Nice), EstOvest (Turin), “Klang und Raum” (Dresden), “Moscow Forum”, “Another Space”, “Platform” (Moscow), “Gulfstream III” (Kyiv) and many others.
  • Broadcast of compositions on leading Russian classical music radio stations: Radio Culture, Radio Orpheus.
  • Compositions recorded and published by the Firma Melodiya record company.
  • Music has been performed across Europe (Moscow, Berlin — Konzerthaus, Paris — Théâtre Dunois, Amsterdam — Muziekgebouw, Venice Biennale, Vienna, Kyiv, Lyon, Nice, The Hague — Korzo Theatre, Zurich, and many other cities) by various ensembles, including renowned contemporary music groups and orchestras: Studio for New Music Moscow, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, De Ereprijs, Reconsil Wien, Airborne Extended, etc.
  • Compositions published by the Donemus publishing (Netherlands).
  • Also Nikolai performed electronic improvisations on various stages in Russia and Ukraine.

Nikolaï Khrust

Education
  • Composition (prof. V. Tarnopolski), Music theory (harmony, form analysis, polyphony, instrumentation, orchestration, electronic music, pedagogical psychology etc.

Nikolaï Khrust

Education
  • Music theory, harmony, polyphony, solfeggio, general piano, instrumentation, form analysis, music history and literature etc.