Gudimir

Maxim Anukhin is one of the few artists who are now able to make full use of the harp as a distinctive and self-suficient instrument. Anukhin performs solo, teaches, creates and takes part in ethno projects such as Hvarna and Samhey. He prefers to call his solo projects “Gudimir” because he (improviser!) regularly engages into them the most unlikely partners whose participation is by definition short-term. A native of Karelia, Anukhin lives in St. Petersburg, where he graduated from University of Culture and Arts in a rare field – “mastery of the harp.” The geography of his performances include Eastern and Western Europe, USA, Canada, countries of the former Soviet Union. Anukhin toured solo as well as a part of his own ensemble of Slavic music “Obereg” or Rudolf Smirnov’s ensemble “Cottage-Trio”.

In recent years, Anukhin not only actively works on diverse programs with harps and voices, but also continues his own learning – including rhythmic systems of other cultures. They formed the school of improvisational harp performance, which perhaps simply has no analogues in the world today. As for the solo programs, he revised the version of Sadko tale, that introduces young audience to a variety of instruments of the world (Maxim willingly speaks to the youngest audience, a certain part of his performances is in kindergartens …). And secondly, the fundamental “Life of Zayanka,” in which the pathos and amazing depth and irony are mixed in a truly magical brew of modern technology and ancient pagan Mari (!) Folklore, impregnated either seriously or as a joke with hypertrophied occult references.