In 1991-1992, Boris studied with a world famous pianist professor Grigory Sokolov at the St Petersburg State Conservatory. Since 1992, Boris has been on an intense quest searching for new ways in music and after 15 years has culminated in playing ancient Indian Ragas on piano.

Since 2008 he has performed Ragas in Moscow, St Petersburg, and Berlin. In 2013 his first big album called Evening Ragas was been recorded in St Petersburg.

Raga is a musical composition based on strict rules regarding scale, base notes, time of performance etc. An Indian musician has these rules in his or her mind, and plays every piece without putting it down on paper. Only the beginning pattern has been appointed and in some genres also some development lines are written down. So the Raga is mostly the improvisation. Therefore you may hear the same Raga different by different musicians.

Raga develops in the same way as a tree grows. We do not see the roots of the tree, so by hearing the raga we rst do not understand where is music - so uncertain and slowly it develops. But then we see the beginning of a new life - a rape fruit of pure emotion will rise in one`s heart. The point of the Raga is to produce one of the puri ed emotion. In the Indian music theory we deal with ten basic emotions. These are 1) devotion; 2) love; 3) valor; 4) compassion; 5) joy; 6) tranquility; 7) sobriety; 8) restlessness; 9) detachment; 10) astonishment. Sometimes they add another forms of emotional attitude such as a parental mood or maybe even angry feelings.

The difference between our common emotions and purifed ones is that our usual feelings are connected with our ego while the purifed emotions are not. Therefore we can experience more powerful insights than in the midst of our routine. Actually this is the reason why people are going to theaters and watching movies. They get something they cannot gain in their day-by-day lives.

In the scale system of Raga there are two centers - the keynote itself and so called vadi - the King Note. The keynote is always the rst key in the scale whereas the Vadi can be any note of the scale. So when the Vadi is different from the keynote we get a double center - and the performer should think simultaneously in two different planes. In the Raga there is no tonal transition therefore the keynote remains the same during the performing while the Vadi-note tunes our attention into this new level of listener's understanding.

You can find out more about Boris on his website.

Evening Ragas