“My compositions are like stories. When writing, it’s as if i would paint. “
(Anton Sjarov)
In musician’s circles, the violinist and composer Anton Sjarov is considered an outstanding representative of world music. His works, barely describable in words, are as elaborate and complex as the musical cosmos in which the exceptional virtuoso is at home. His more than 700 compositions fuse an abundance of musical styles: classical, jazz, tango, flamenco, klezmer and non-European influences. Musical boundaries are alien to this cosmopolitan, overcoming them by allowing the cultural harmonic relationships to flourish and blossom.
After attending a music grammar school, Sjarov studied at the renowned Academy of Music in Plovdiv (Bulgaria). Further studies followed at the Antwerp Jazz Academy and at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. In worldwide concerts in chamber music ensembles and top-ranking philharmonic orchestras Sjarov established himself as a soloist and literally as the first violinist.
However, his musical interest soon manifested in genre-spanning productions that led to engagements in many major European capital cities including Paris, Budapest, Prague, and Brussels. A wider audience inspired Sjarov as a soloist in extravagant shows and TV productions, such as “Holliday on Ice” appearing with Katerina Witt, the multiple olympic and world champion in figure skating.
In his playing, where he often doubles the violin with his voice, he realizes imaginary landscapes, creates chamber-music like atmospheres, moving between dark melancholy and ardent passion, combined with the energy of jazz and carried by classical figures and techniques. He searches for the deep dimension in improvised music, for the space between the spaces, the microcosm of sound. “I write Flamenco, Tango, Klezmer and Celtic, use Latin American rhythms, experiment with the four-tone system of Indian and Oriental music and connect them with the classical European music traditions,” is the way the thoroughbred musician tries to describe his creative work. But what are mere words against the emotional depth of ineffable music?
