The Music of Yerkesh Shakeyev

I recently visited Almaty in Kazakhstan to perform tracks from a new album of music by Yerkesh Shakeyev. The gift of melody is a wonderful and often underrated quality in so-called "serious" music circles. Yerkesh has that gift and, just as Saint-Saens described his abilities,  they come to him easily "like an apple tree produces apples."

​Shakeyev is a pop superstar across all former Soviet countries and recently begun writing in a more "classical" style. The album of piano music I recorded last year at Abbey Road (with some superb arrangements by Dimitriy Varelas), has just been released.  The whole album can be listened to on spotify  here
I have also arranged and recorded two tracks with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and an album of cello music with Alexander Baillie. Both  will be released in the near future. 

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Here is the London Symphony Orchestra playing Shakeyev's  "London" from a concert at Luke's in 2015.

and here he sings one of the ballads that made him such a popular artist in all Russian-speaking countries. 

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