The story of this duo began on February 1990 when Roman Stolyar and his friend Michael Volfovitch, a jazz-rock drummer, started to discuss an idea of creating new musical group of original performing style. As a result new duo of piano and drums was born. After successful performance in Novokuznetsk Jazz Piano festival Andrey Turygin, who was first-year student of Novosibirsk Conservatoire, joined them - and duo became trio firstly called as STV (Stolyar - Turygin - Volfovitch). In January 1991 STV visited Hawaii in frames of USSR - USA intercultural project. After MichaelТs immigration in Israel Sergey Skomorokhov was invited as a new drummer, and new trio received name ALTER EGO. However, after some successful performances Skomorokhov decided to leave trio, so the duo of piano and alto saxophone started its life which became very active soon.
In 1996 young singer Yelena Silantieva entered Novosibirsk musical college and started studying jazz & pop vocal in a class of Tatyana Yershukova where Roman worked as an accompanist. Soon YelenaТs strongest desire to perform original music moved Roman to write something special for her voice. A new composition called УSongs of the SeasonsФ was completed in the very beginning of January 2000 and was performed first in college and then in Novosibirsk Philharmonic. After sometimes new duo found its name SHANTI (which means СPeaceФ on Sanskrit) and performed in different concert halls of Novosibirsk, and, besides, on Angarsk Jazz Festival, Living Water folk festival in Altai and Second International Festival "The Art of Improvisation In The Contemporary World" in Odessa (Ukraine). In November 2000 SHANTI showed its new program УMother England ReveriesФ which includes renewed versions of ancient English and Scottish ballads and some examples of English rock songs rearranged for piano/recorders and voice/percussions.
Collective appeared on Siberian free music stage on February 2002. However, musicians gathered for this trio are quite known as participants of other contemporary art projects. Mikhail Sergeev used to work as a performer & manager with Roman Dubinnikov and in worldly known Vjacheslav Polunin Theatre. Besides, he also became famous in Siberia as a photography artist. Vjacheslav УSlavaФ Murin who works constantly as a sound engineer in Novosibirsk State Conservatoire has participated in some projects of Vladimir Chekasin and studied intensively baroque music and free improvisation during last several years. Roman Stolyar was invited by them to participate in the concert at avant-garde club УBlack WidowФ on February 1, 2002. Their first program was dedicated to John Cage and attracted wide audience to music of that kind. Then, trio took part in the concert together with well-known Siberian drummer Sergej Belichenko in Novosibirsk Philharmonics on February 6, and participated in Novosibirsk television art show on February 16. TRIGRAFICA has been invited for opening art and photo exhibitions at Novosibirsk picture gallery and Red Corner exhibition hall.
Formed in August 2007 during the work on its first album, Dots & Lines is a creative project appeared as a result of collaboration of Siberian pianist and composer Roman Stolyar and improvisers from Saint Petersburg Ц saxophonist Ilia Belorukov and guitarist Andrey Popovskiy. Participants of the trio have different professional background and experience, but the tendency to construct their spontaneous improvisations in a way which combines freedom of self-expression with attention to its shape and extreme contact between musicians is the thing which unites them deeply. The music vocabulary of Dots & Lines is a mixture of new classical music, contemporary jazz and ethnic sounds; their intuitive compositions are both expressive and intelligent. The first public appearance of the trio has happened in December 2007 at Jazz.Ru festival in Moscow, and its album has been released on Siberian label Ermatell Records.