Machnev Andrey Vladimirovich (06.02.1971, Krivoy Rog, Ukraine) is a saxophonist, an educator, a composer, an arranger, an administrator of jazz orchestra and ensembles, one of organizers of the children’s jazz education in Rostov-on-Don, a laureate of the international jazz contests and festivals. He has become a well-known soloist of Rostov big bands, one of the leaders of New-Centropezn Jazz Quartet band and an administrator of the unique children’s jazz orchestra.
He started learning how to play a saxophone at the age of 9 (class of A.R. Gebel). Since 1983, as a member of Alexander Gebel’s jazz orchestra, he visited jazz festivals in Dnepropetrovsk (1983), Donetsk (1984), Tbilisi (1985), Leningrad (1985) and Moscow (1986). Since 1987 he has been working in Kim Nazaretov’s jazz orchestra.
In 1990 he graduated from the Variety and Jazz Department of RCA, in 1995 – from the Variety and Jazz Faculty of S. V. Rachmaninoff RSC (Academy). When he was a student, he became a laureate of the International Contest of Young Jazz Performers twice (1990, 1994, Rostov-on-Don). He worked for 4 years in Viktor Budarin’s “Don-band” (in 1993 he performed at the jazz festivals in Novosibirsk and Saint Petersburg); worked as an artist of the orchestra of Young Spectator’s Theater (1993); in the position of a professor on the class of saxophone at the Variety and Jazz Music Faculty of S. V. Rachmaninoff Rostov State Conservatory (Academy) (1995-1998).
As a member of an ensemble that in 1998 had adopted a name New-Centropezn Jazz Quartet, he participated in international contests:
- “Euro-Jazz-94” (Belgium) – the 5th place and a special prize “Most promising young band”.
- XIV European Contest of Young Jazz Bands in Leverkusen (1995, Germany) – Grand Prize.
- XXII International Contest in Gecko (1998, Spain) – “Best Band in the Opinion of the Audience”.
Since 1995 he has been working in the school. In 1997 he created a children’s big band successfully performing at the International Jazz Festivals in Ukraine, Russia, Germany. Children’s big band of the school became a true surprise at the jubilee concerts of People’s Artists of Russia I. Bril and A. Kroll, sharing the stage with Oleg Lundstrem’s legendary orchestra. He has written 50 arrangements for the children’s big band. He is very successful as a composer as well.
His pupils regularly take winning places at the international contests of Russia (Saint Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don) and of the near abroad (Ukraine), perform at the jazz festivals in Germany, Scotland, Ukraine, Russia. There are also Grand Prize winners of the International Contest of Young Jazz Performers: Aleksey Nekrasov (2001), Evgeny Ring (2007). His graduates continued their professional education in S. V. Rachmaninoff RSC (Academy) (Karen Sargsyan), the USA (Aleksey Nekrasov), the Netherlands (Sergey Avanesov), Germany (saxophonists Evgeny Ring, Artem Sargsyan, Eldar Tsalikov).
As a member of New Centropezn Quartet, he constantly appears at the international jazz festivals of the near and far abroad. As a percussion performer of Kim Nazaretov’s jazz orchestra –where the quarter has been a rhythm section since 2001- he has participated in various international projects. The most important of them is East West European Jazz Orchestra which came into being (since 2004) thanks to the long-term relations between twin cities Rostov-on-Don and Dortmund and which united musicians from Russia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Indonesia, the USA, France, Serbia, the Netherlands.
In 2010 A. V. Machnev became a laureate at the All-Russian Contest “Best teacher of a children’s school of arts in Russia”.
