Solitary Dog Sculptor I

Biography

Alexey Zimakov was born on January 3d, 1971, in Tomsk, Russia. When he was six, he began studying music and playing guitar, his first teacher was his father Victor Zimakov. After finishing secondary school, he entered Tomsk Musical College named after E.V. Denisov, which he graduated from with an external degree in 1988. In the same year, Zimakov successfully entered the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music, the class of N.A. Komolyatov.

1990 saw Alexey’s first major victory as he took the Grand Prix at the IV All-Russian competition of folk music in Gorky, Russia. In the autumn of the same year, Zimakov won the first prize at the international guitar competition "Silesian Guitar Autumn" in Tychy, Poland.

In 1991, after two successive victories came another one – at the prestigious GFA competition in Miami, FL, where Alexey won the golden medal and the Grand Prix.

The jury highly appreciated his original and poetic rendition of the works by Federico Moreno Torroba, as well his virtuosity and guitar mastery in his playing of «Invocation y Danza» by Joaquin Rodrigo and the Fantasy on a Russian folk theme "Here the postal troika sweeps by " by S. Orekhov.

This victory gave Alexey the right to make a North American tour of concerts, which began in October and ended in December 1992. During the tour he gave dozens of concerts in different cities of the U.S., such as Washington D.C., New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc.

Alexey Zimakov became the first Russian guitarist of our time to have achieved such a success abroad.

The famous Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo, the author of the famous concert "Aranjuez" for guitar and orchestra, on hearing his work performed by Alexey Zimakov, told the press that it was the perfect sound of the concert as he imagined it.

In 1993 Alexey successfully passed the examination and was accepted to the graduate school of the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music where he studied under the Honored Artist of Russia, Professor Alexander Frautchi.

In 1995, after he successfully completed a graduate course, he immediately received offers from several russian universities to work as a teacher. He was also offered collaboration in Europe and the U.S., but he decided to return to his home city.

After his arrival to Tomsk, Alexey Zimakov began teaching at Tomsk Musical College named after E.V. Denisov. In 1996 he formed a duet with Olga Anokhina, who he had already known from his student days. Since then Zimakov began performing solo and in a duet of guitar and piano. The repertoire of Alexey and Olga`s duet included great transcriptions of virtuoso violin music. Alexey also worked extensively with conductors and guitarists, constantly giving concerts in different cities of Russia.

Repertoire and performances of Alexey Zimakov always had a transcendental aspect to them.

Alexey worked with russian and foreign conductors such as Vladimir Ponkin, J. Lapins, E. Shestakov, E.B. Enkhe, S. Alvarez, Lin Tao, etc.

He was in a constant creative alliance with E. Bushkov.

On the night of December 14-15, a terrible tragedy befell Alexey. He had a severe hand injury caused by frostbite. Eight of his fingers had to be amputated, which left him with only two thumbs.

Music: Alexey Zimakov - Live in Kamensk-Uralsky - Part 1 - Agustin Barrios - Cathedral in three movements

(::)