EEGERU, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Listening School for Contemporary Music

The music ensemble EEGERU from Almaty is devoted to contemporary, experimental music from Kazakhstan and Central Asia. In lecture concerts, music experts explain the compositions and train the audience’s ear.
 

The EEGERU ensemble was founded in 2015 by a group of like-minded musicians. Their obsession: contemporary music from Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Their passion: modern, musical thought structures played on “European” instruments such as flute, clarinet, piano, violin and cello and on “Kazakh” instruments such as the kylkobyz with its unmistakable timbre. Since then, a small but refined fan community has grown that doesn’t miss any of the many concerts and certainly not the Nauryz Festival, which was held for the third time this year and always has outstanding musicians such as Tristan Murray, Klaus Lang or Fedor Lednev visiting.

Another festival called EEGERU CONNECT was added in 2019, which presents the contemporary music of a specific country in many concerts, lectures, open rehearsals and master classes, including so far Germany, France, Spain, the US and the Netherlands.

But the EEGERU ensemble not only welcomes illustrious musicians from all over the world, it is also a welcome guest at international music projects and on stages such as the Meyerhold Theatre Centre in Moscow and the Art Shok Theatre in Almaty.

In recent years, EEGERU has increasingly become a center for the study of contemporary and experimental music, so that now, with IRF funding, (ALTER)NATIVE, EEGERU is being launched:an online project with lecture concerts by the ensemble, a “listening school” to train listening and reception skills for modern music. The concerts are introduced from three different perspectives: that of a composer, of a musician and of a performer.

With its multifaceted commitment, EEGERU is helping to bring about lasting change in Kazakhstan’s cultural landscape. 


EEGERU. CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE, KAZAKHSTAN
Yerzhan Kushanov (flute)
Damir Burkitbayev (clarinet)
Sabina Atageldiyeva (piano)
Dinara Bazarbayeva-Sahaman (violin)
Pavel Tarassevich (viola)
Edgar Aitbekov (cello)