Overview:

Mikhail Bozylev, a UO doctoral student, refined his politics-infused improvisations into a solo album. He'll perform the album live in a Friday concert.

As protests for fair elections roiled Moscow in 2019, videos of tense standoffs between citizens and the police spread online.

Mikhail Bozylev watched along. It had been a charmed year for the Russian pianist’s life, as he both completed master’s degrees abroad and premiered his first concerto at home. But he couldn’t shake seeing the unrest. He sat at his piano and started playing.

Now a second-year doctoral student at the University of Oregon studying music composition and theory, Bozylev has refined his politics-fueled improvisations into a solo piano album. He plans to record and release “Love and Death” next month, and will perform it this Friday in the University of Oregon’s Frohnmayer Music Building. 

Bozylev, 29, who grew up in Novosibirsk, a Siberian city in Russia, said that “Love and Death” is not about choosing between Russia and Ukraine. He said one of the reasons why the album doesn’t choose a side “is that I might just go to prison.”

“But the second reason is that I want this album to be heard by both sides and as many people as I can,” he said.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Lookout Eugene-Springfield: How did “Love and Death” in particular come about? 

Mikhail Bozylev: The main message of the album is that both love and death will take place in our everyday life, and sometimes, unfortunately, there is much more death and cruelty in the world rather than love. But love and justice always come back, no matter how strong the death can be. 

I composed this album under the repression of what happens between Russia and Ukraine nowadays. While big politicians argue with each other, so many people die for no reason.

This album is not only about the confrontation of love and death, but also about the juxtaposition of good and evil. I think it’s really important nowadays to remind people that love and life are the most important aspects in the world, and we should never let violence penetrate into our hearts.

Lookout: Why is this so important for you to incorporate in your life as a musician?

Bozylev: The very first reason is that there’s not much music about it. I think it’s really important to show in music whatever happens in the world. What often happens is that history is being rewritten and some books just get burned. But the pieces of art, they also are part of the history. They can be certain proof of what happens. 

The piece about protest, it’s called “Dialogue.” Writing this piece, I was actually inspired by [Soviet-Russian composer Dmitri] Shostakovich Symphony Number 11, by his second movement. This symphony is about the protests that happened before the revolution, just before the creation of the Soviet Union. People went outside, and the tsar basically just let the whole army go to the square. They just started to kill people with weapons, but people didn’t have any weapons.

In this album, I actually wanted not to kind of choose one particular side that is right because, well, one of the reasons is that I might just go to prison [laughs], but the second reason is that I want this album to be heard by both sides and as many people as it can. The main purpose of the album is not who is wrong. It’s about that whatever happens, we should stop it. 

For that piece, I actually chose a certain logo, which is a paper cup on fire. It symbolizes both protests in Moscow in 2019, in which people go to criminal cases for just throwing a paper cup to the policeman; there was one criminal case where the person was about to go to prison for three years just for this. Later it was canceled due to, really, petition. On the other side, it also symbolizes the protests in Odesa [in 2014], and there were Russian protesters who got stuck in the building. The building was burned and people just died. 

The album is more about the message not to allow evil to go into our soul.

Lookout: You just joked about not wanting to go to prison. Are you planning on returning to Russia after your doctorate finishes here? 

Bozylev: That’s an interesting question. I don’t know, we will see. Currently, I’m just enjoying music and enjoying Oregon.

Lookout: You’re a Russian artist living in the United States, making work that touches on political themes, on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. How do you best approach that complicated dynamic?

Bozylev: I would say it’s always really difficult. All of my thoughts are just put into my music. For what I can say publicly, that’s the main idea. 

In “Dialogue,” I was really impressed by Shoshtakovich’s second movement of the 11th symphony. Here we have that kind of theme in the strings, which is really dramatic, like [citizens] begging [soldiers] not to kill them. At the same time, we have timpani which goes under this and just shows that whatever happens, they just keep going. It’s actually not the first time that Shostakovich uses that; we also know the very famous drum solo in his Leningrad symphony. 

That’s what I kind of use in my music, but I play more with the register. I have clusters and really chromatic chords in the lower register and, with “Dialogue,” in the high register there is that kind of tonal harmony. 

Lookout: Is this work something you wrote at the University of Oregon, or does it predate your time here?

Bozylev: “Dialogue” actually derived from my improvisation. In 2019, I just played the music [while] recording myself, and then I decided to redo it as a piano piece. Most of this album is actually derived from my improvisations. 

One of the ways of my composition is that, as I’m a pianist, most of my music comes from just from hands, from fingers. I just always record myself.

If I find something really interesting when I’m thinking about one particular event, I just improvise. If I find this impressive, I then think what I should take from this improvisation? What should I remove? I take some of the moments from one improvisation, then take from another. It’s like shopping. 

How to hear “Love and Death” 

Bozylev will perform from his upcoming solo piano album “Love and Death” at 7:30 p.m. this Friday, May 30, at Aasen-Hull Hall in UO’s MarAbel B. Frohnmayer Music Building.

Bozylev said he plans to record the album in June and release it later that month.

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Annie Aguiar is the Arts and Culture Correspondent. She has reported arts news and features for national and local newsrooms, including at the Seattle Times, the Washington Post and most recently as a reporting fellow for the New York Times’ Culture desk covering arts and entertainment.