Silvestrov became a visiting composer at the Almeida Music Festival in London (1989), Gidon Kremer's Lockenhaus Festival in Austria (1990), and various festivals in Denmark, Finland, and Holland. It was Baley who brought about in 1985 the first performances of Postludium for piano and orchestra and in 1988 of the symphony for baritone and orchestra Exegi monumentum in Las Vegas as well as a Valentin Silvestrov 50th Birthday Concert in New York. One of his earliest champions was the American pianist and conductor Virko Baley, an aficionado and longtime advocate of contemporary Ukrainian music in general and Silvestrov's works in particular. This situation gradually changed with Silvestrov's growing international acclaim. For many years there were at least a few enthusiastic performers who played his music from time to time. The works of the young composer, especially his Symphony no 3, were awarded the Koussevitzky Prize in 1967, and in 1970 Silvestrov’s Hymn for six orchestral groups received an honorary title at the international Gaudeamus competition and festival in Utrecht.ĭespite much-acclaimed performances in the West, which the composer was not permitted to attend, his music was ignored in his own country on the official level, though unofficially it created quite a stir, which is the reason why it was sometimes banned. In 1968 the same conductor gave the premiere of the Symphony no 2. His Spectrums for chamber orchestra, for example, was premiered to spectacular acclaim by the Leningrad Philharmonic under the baton of Igor Blashkov in 1965. In the 1960s and 1970s his music was hardly played in his native city premieres, if given at all, were heard only in Russia, primarily in Leningrad (now St. Silvestrov is considered one of the leading representatives of the "Kiev avant-garde", which came to public attention around 1960 and was violently criticized by the proponents of the conservative Soviet musical aesthetic. He has been a freelance composer in Kiev from 1970 to 2022, fled from Ukraine in 2022 to Germany and currently lives in Berlin.
He then taught at a music studio in Kiev for several years.
He at first taught himself, and then, between 1955-58, went to an evening music school while during the day studying to become a civil engineer from 1958 to 1964 he studied composition and counterpoint, respectively, with Boris Lyatoshinsky and Lev Revutsky at Kiev Conservatory. He came to music relatively late, at the age of fifteen. Valentin Silvestrov was born in Kiev on 30 September 1937. Music should be so transparent that one can see the bottom and that poetry shimmers through this transparency.
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