Vladislav Shoot

He was born Vladislav Shut in Voznesensk, Soviet Union, to Valentina (née Nizovaya) and Alexei Shut, an officer in the navy. He was raised in Sevastopol, where he attended School N14. Shoot studied composition with Nikolai Peiko at the Gnessin Music Institute (the present-day Russian Academy of Music) in Moscow, graduating in 1967. From 1967 to 1982 he worked as the music editor at the Sovetsky Kompozitor publishers in Moscow. In 1982, he turned to freelance composing, earning his living by writing film scores. In 1990, Shoot – together with a small group of Moscow composers headed by Edison Denisov – founded the Association for Contemporary Music, a revival of a post-Revolutionary avant-garde composers' association of the same name. In 1992 he came to Dartington Hall, England, as a composer-in-residence, in which capacity he served until 1995, and remained a resident of the estate. Shoot's music is published by M.P. Belaieff – Edition Peters (Frankfurt-am-Main)/Schott (Mainz). Individual works have also been published by Boosey & Hawkes and Hans Sikorski. He married the artist Irina Karpey in 1970. His son Eliahu (Eli) Shoot is also a composer, teaching at Tulane University, and his daughter Veronika (Nika Shoot) is a pianist. Shoot died on 9 March 2022.

Shoot's works met with much admiration in the West from the 1980s onward. He preferred smaller ensembles, up to a chamber orchestra, which he tied into sound compositions or groups of overlapping sound layers. Even his symphonies, excepting the High Cross Symphony (1998), are chamber symphonies. He retained serial processes, used post-Romantic elements, and quoted composers of the past, with Alban Berg as the clearest influence. Shoot allowed performers of his works a certain freedom of interpretation within the bounds of a controlled aleatoric technique. His music has been performed at numerous venues and festivals throughout Europe, as well as in South Korea and the United States. The music written in the UK has been performed by leading British ensembles and orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and Sinfonia 21. An 80th birthday celebration concert took place on 29 June 2021 at St George's, Bloomsbury in London.

• Sinfonia da Camera No. 3, flute, oboe, 2 ensembles (percussion, strings), 1978 • Romantic Messages, flute, bassoon, prepared piano, string orchestra, 1979 • Largo Sinfonia, organ, small orchestra (15 players), 1981 • Warum?, small orchestra (15 players), 1986 • Ex Animo, large orchestra, 1988 • Sinfonia da Camera No. 4, tam-tam, strings, 1992 • Sinfonia da Camera No. 5, small orchestra (16 players), 1992 • Serenade, string orchestra, 1995 • Divertimento, recorder, vibraphone, string orchestra, 1997 • High-Cross Symphony, large orchestra, 1998 • Sinfonia da Camera No. 6, string orchestra, percussion, 2005

• Sonata-fantasia, violin, piano, 1969, revised 2001 • Cuckoo's Rhymes (20 Miniatures for Children), violin, piano, 1969, revised 1999 • Sonata, cello, 1970, revised 1999 • Youth Album, violin, piano, 1971, revised 1999 • Sinfonia da Camera No. 1, 4 celli, double bass, timpani, 1973 • Sinfonia da Camera No. 2, flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bassoon, viola, cello, double bass, 1975 • Five Easy Pieces, French horn, piano, 1976, revised 2001 • Sonata Breve, flute, 1977 • Trio, bassoon, cello, percussion, 1978 • Solo per Fagotto, bassoon, 1978 • Metamorphosis, saxophone, harp, double bass, percussion, 1979 • Trio, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 1982 • Parable, 6 percussion, 1983 • Espressivo, flute, oboe, violin, cello, piano, 1984 • Epitaph, French horn, 2 trumpets, trombone, tuba, 1984 • Mini-partita, viola, piano, 1987 • Four Versions, bassoon, string quartet, 1990 (also arranged for bassoon, violin, viola, cello, 1996) • Offering, violin, cello, piano, 1991 • Serenade, string quartet, 1994 • Pantomime, flute, harpsichord, 1995 • Con Passione, string quartet, piano, 1995 • Amoroso, clarinet, string quartet, 1996 • Chaconne, accordion, 1999 • Pastorale, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, piano, 2002 • Eternal Rest, 3 percussion, 2002 • Suite, string quartet, 2003 • Three Encounters with Shostakovich, clarinet, horn, string quartet, piano, percussion, 2006

• She came and went (text by James Russell Lowell), mixed chorus, 2001 (also version for mixed chorus, soprano recorder, 2001); • Two Holy Sonnets (text by John Donne), mixed chorus, 2003

• Two songs of Robert Burns (translated by Samuil Marshak), mezzo-soprano, piano, 1964, revised 2002; • Six Poems by Sergei Gorodetsky, high voice, piano, 1970 • Gleam of Light (text by Boris Pasternak), middle voice, piano, 1988 • Vorgefühl (text by Rainer Maria Rilke), high voice, 2 clarinets, viola, cello, double bass, 1993 • Four Songs on Words by P.B. Shelley, soprano, string quartet, 1994 • Three Songs on Words by Osip Mandelstam, high voice, flute, clarinet, string quartet, 1994 • Day and Night (text by Fyodor Tyutchev), high voice, recorder, string quartet, 2000 • The Miller's Daughter (text from an English folk ballad), soprano, clarinet, percussion, 2001

• Silhouettes, 1973 • Sonatina, 1974, revised 2002 • Children's Album, 1975, revised 1995

• Confession, 1993, revised 2000