Anatoli Vapirov

Composer, saxophonist, clarinettist and improviser, Anatoli Vapirov combined composed music with improvisation. Born in Berdyansk in 1947, he graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory as a clarinettist in 1971, completed his postgraduate studies there in 1977 under Pavel Sukhanov, and taught classical and jazz saxophone at the same institution between 1976 and 1982. His Leningrad work included Melodiya albums in the later 1970s and collaborations with Sergey Kuryokhin and Vladimir Volkov. From the mid-1980s he lived in Bulgaria. His scores combine jazz idioms, Slavic and Balkan melodies, and twentieth-century compositional techniques. As its artistic director he shaped the Varna Summer International Jazz Festival over three decades. He died in 2025. He studied the clarinet at the Leningrad Conservatory and completed its master class in saxophone in 1977, taught the saxophone there from 1976 to 1982; his interests were wide — mainstream in the group The Golden Years of Jazz, traditional jazz as the leader of the big band in Varna, and chamber, symphonic and ballet music; he died in Varna on 25 September 2025. Among his scores are the ballet Masquerade, Ten Jazz Pieces on Macbeth, the Slavonic Requiem and a concerto grosso for symphony orchestra and jazz quartet.