Kurekhin S.А. (1954-1996), composer

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Categories / Tsarskoe Selo and town of Pushkin. The digital chronological reference book/Pushkin personality
KUREKHIN Sergey Anatolyevich (1954-1996, St. Petersburg), composer, pianist, actor, showman, writer, eminent rock artist, and one of the leading postmodernists. Living in St. Petersburg from 1971, he studied in the Institute of Culture. A prominent figure in the so-called Saigon generation of Leningrad rock (see Saigon) from the mid-1970s, he was simultaneously renowned as an outstanding jazz pianist. His Pop Mechanics held the first action in 1984 to exist for ten years. Kurekhin's postmodern invention cannot be positively considered neither concert nor show nor performance. It combined various cultural codes, arts, and music, such as avant-garde jazz, rock, military brass band, symphony orchestra, Gipsy band, variety, and opera, famous actresses playing themselves, etc. It was not uncommon that about 300 performers would participate in a performance. Aquarium, AuktsYon, and Kino musicians appeared on the same stage with a folklore ensemble and circus artists, showgirls side by side with classical ballet, harp players, as well as goats, rabbits, and other animals. A performance consisted of all these fantastical components which were rendered around a particular theme to which Kurekhin improvised. These themes had various names: Five Days of Baron Wrangel's Life, Give the Wolf the Best Food But It Will Never Be the Captain, Suvorov Crossing Kutuzov, and others. He was engaged in composing, recording albums, and playing solo improvisations at the same time. He wrote music for 20 films between 1988 and 1996. As an actor, co-scenarist, and musician, he took part in shooting S. G. Debizhev's Lokh the Winner of Water in 1991, Two Captains Part II, with B. B. Grebenschikov as a co-author, and Insanity Complex, both shot in 1992. He recorded a plenty of discs, Insect Culture, Pop Mechanics 17, Polynesia: Introduction to History, and Sparrow Oratorio the most popular of them. Kurekhin joined E. Limonov's National Bolshevik Party in 1990s and collaborated with A. G. Dugin to publish the Manifesto of New Magicians. After he died, the Kurekhin Public Fund was founded and SKIF, an international festival of postmodern arts, has been held annually. He was buried at Komarovskoe Cemetery.

Works: Silent Witness published in St. Petersburg in 1997.

Reference: Трофименков М., Ваулина Е. Механика-поп // Театр. жизнь. 1989. № 18. С. 11-13.

A. L. Porfiryeva. Debizhev Sergey Gennadievich
Dugin Alexander Gelievich
Grebenshchikov Boris Borisovich
Kurekhin Sergey Anatolievich
Limonov Eduard Veniaminovich
Трофименков М., Ваулина Е. Механика-поп // Театр. жизнь, 1989
История группы Сергей Курехин//ROCL@RU. 2003. URL: http://rok.kulichki.ru/groups/kurehin
Немой свидетель. СПб., 1997 University of Culture and Arts, St. Petersburg State
Komorovskoe Cemetery