Evgeny Lebedev

Evgeny Lebedev is the winner of the International Jazz Performers Competition in Belgium, the winner of the piano competition in Montreux (Switzerland), the Made in New York Jazz Competition (USA) and the winner of the special prize of Afisha magazine, a graduate of Berkeley College. Being an active concert musician, Evgeny is also a member of the Moscow Union of Composers and a teacher at the Igor Butman Jazz Academy. The musician took part in the largest jazz festivals in the world: North Sea Jazz, Jazz Masters (Netherlands), Jazz a Juan (France), Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, Tanglewood Jazz Festival (USA), Jazz Hoeilaart, Brussels Jazz Weekend (Belgium). Collaborated with jazz stars of the first magnitude: Jack DeJohnette, Marcus Miller, Lenny White, Randy Brecker, David Sanchez, Joe Lovano, David Futchinsky, Kenwood Denard, Terry Lyne Carrington, George Garzone.

Currently, Evgeny performs mainly as part of the LRK Trio, together with bassist Anton Revnyuk and drummer Ignat Kravtsov. The ensemble became one of the most exported Russian jazz ensembles: their tour routes ran through Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Estonia, Switzerland, the USA, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Portugal plus performances at many Russian festivals and concert venues.

Most of the trio's music is author's. It is written by all three members of the ensemble. In 2017, the trio released their first international album "If You Have a Dream", which immediately received good press around the world. In Russia, the album "If you have a Dream" was released by Butman Music Records, and on the world market it is represented by the Norwegian label Lost Records. The album was named the "Jazz Album of the Year" by the Russian Union of Music Critics, was presented in the list of recommended recordings of the Commonwealth of European jazz magazines — Europe Jazz Media Chart, and then brought the Russian ensemble a Special jury Award in the Made in New York jazz competition.

LRK Trio is not an ordinary jazz trio with a pianist. And the point here is not even that it is an open composition with which, depending on the creative tasks being solved, a string quartet, and invited soloists — singers, instrumentalists, whole ensembles can come on stage. And it's not that Lebedev plays not only the piano in the ensemble, but also electronic keyboards and accordion, Revnyuk is one of the few jazz bassists in the country who owns both an acoustic double bass and an electric bass guitar at an equally high creative level, and Kravtsov brings a lot to the sound of the drum kit the most modern timbral effects and rhythmic ideas. The fact is that the trio, while remaining on a solid foundation of jazz art, organically combines elements of many other types of music in their music — both academic and modern. Their music is not just arranged, but it's not complexity for the sake of complexity, it's just a great skill in implementing bright musical ideas.

And these ideas are dominated by a generous melodic richness that does not allow the listener to forget that the ensemble from Russia is playing, whose music is based on the richest heritage of Russian musical culture — a heritage that continues to influence the development of music around the world to this day.

LRK Trio is a very modern collective: there is no museum in their music, it always sounds like the music of the twenty—first century, but standing on a powerful foundation of the world-famous Russian musical culture, organically woven into the world stage, but not losing its own face.