Evgeny Grinko

Music knows no boundaries - a platitude that is as boring as it is true: sometimes music travels to different corners of the world without warning, overcoming musical or physical boundaries in the process. This was also the case with Evgeny Grinko, a former noise rock musician whose first foray into the sphere of modern classical music developed into a phenomenon in Turkey rather by chance and has since spread all over the world.

Born in Zukhovsky, Russia, in 1985, Evgeny was familiar with music from an early age. He remembers well how, at the age of 4, he noticed the music in various films and cartoons, including The Three Musketeers and other Russian films. By the age of 6, Russian rockabilly and surf music was playing on TV every morning as he prepared for school. When Evgeny's parents noticed his fascination with this music, they bought him a cassette with the same music.
A few years later, when western pop music was broadcast on Russian television, Evgeny sat spellbound in front of the screen and watched performances by Prodigy, Chemical Brothers and Nirvana. These performances inspired him, and with the help of his parents, he bought his first guitar from a neighbor.
After two years on the guitar, Evgeny switched to drums and began playing in indie noise bands in his home town and in nearby Moscow. A highlight from this period is a tour as part of a group with Damo Suzuki, formerly a member of the well-known German krautrock band Can.
In 2007, Evgeny switched to the piano - an instrument he would not let go of from then on. Just three years later, Valse simply bubbled out of him.
"It was a hot summer evening. I was improvising on the piano and the first part of the melody revealed itself to me. I knew it was something special, so I took out my cell phone and made a video of my hands playing the melody. It was so different from the music I was playing at the time that I just forgot about it. Six months later, I went back to the composition, finished it and immediately uploaded it to Facebook."
Evgeny quickly created the now iconic video for Valse: An upright piano in a field at sunset. A thickly wrapped, unshaven Evgeny puffs on a cigarette while his hands play the beguiling melody. The wistful accordion kicks in, a flock of birds appears and can be heard for a few seconds on the recording - creating a viral moment - but only the beginning for Evgeny Grinko.

In 2014, Grinko released his album Ice for Aureliano Buenda, which also featured Valse.
A year later, Turkish superstar Mabel Matiz recorded the song Valse on his album Gök Nerede. The song was given a second life - and Evgeny Grinko a somewhat surprising and unexpected success in Turkey. The attention he gained in this way would soon transcend national borders and establish Evgeny Grinko as a figurehead of modern classical music worldwide.

Humor, sadness and longing are found in equal measure in Evgeny's compositions, which contain cinematic elements despite their sparse instrumentation. Colors float in and out of the music, merging from time to time into a spontaneous rainbow of sounds.
"Every new composition feels like a small miracle to me. When you create a miracle, you naturally want to share it with the rest of the world!"
Evgeny Grinko can now look back on over 350 million streams on Spotify alone, 168 million YouTube views and over 2.1 million monthly listeners. In 2023 alone, almost 7 million people listened to Evgeny's music for the first time.
That this success is not solely down to anonymous playlists is demonstrated by the growing community surrounding Grinko's music: over 387 thousand subscribers on his YouTube channel and over 392 thousand followers on Instagram speak for themselves. These fans are attracted by the artistic quality and integrity of Evgeny's content.
Seeing Evgeny live is also a remarkable experience. His compositions are meticulously recreated and interpreted by an outstanding ensemble, including a few unreleased songs and other surprises alongside works from all his creative phases.
Evgeny is grateful for everything he has experienced so far and is looking forward to where the music will take him next. On April 12, 2025, it will first take him to the Great Hall of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.