Илья Труханов

Acoustic Guitar Music

Ilya Truhanov

Professional music career of Ilya Truhanov started in 1996 year when he and another guitarist Ilya Kukalo created “Acoustic Band” duet. In the beginning they played in Moscow clubs and a bit later they toured in Russia and some post-USSR countries. In 2000 year “Acoustic Band” won grand-prix at Russian contest “Guitar – 2000”. A lot of Russian magazines and publications rapturously responded on their music (such as: “Music Box”, “In/Out”, “Guitarist”, etc). In 2002 the duet won first place at “Many-Faced Guitar” contest in “fusion” nomination. The same year they released the first album “Pieces for the two guitars” (all the music was composed by Ilya). After it they were invited to take part in the “Best Guitarists of Russia” fest, and even Al Dimeola, who was playing shows in Moscow that time, has highly estimated their playing. In 2003 “Acoustic Band” released “Tango-Mango” album and after it Ilya Truhanov began on his solo. With his band (guitar, cello, drums) he won in “Acoustic Guitar” and “Many-Faced Guitar” contests and in 2004 the album “Dreams of Paspartu” was recorded. The next CD “Trio” was an experiment with more modern sound and traditional rock-band instruments as guitar, electric bass and drums. In 2006 year Ilya and his trio were sharing the stage of “Musicfest” show with Jean Luc Ponty, Steve Baily, Rishad Shafi and others. Ilya was awarded by The Festival Committee for contribution into development of musical education and keeping the cultural heritage of Russia. In 2007-2008 Ilya was collaborating with very talented pianist Alexander Losev. In 2009 year Ilya have finished “Far and Wide” album and that’s the new way for him. He has rethought his approach for composing music. The music of this album is not the traditional acoustic guitar music with ultra-fast passages and mind-blowing fingerstyle equilibristic. It’s multi-layered and melodic, emotional and figurative. Of course, you can hear some speed runs and other technical tricks with which Ilya is known for, that wasn’t the issue as itself, but just the elements of arrangement. Also very much time was spent for the sound, “Far and Wide” was produced and mixed by the great Russian musician/producer Alexander Perfilyev and mastered by legendary Bob Katz. And now Ilya is working on the new album but that’s another story. By the way, all this time Truhanov collaborates with different Russian pop/rock singers/bands/musicians, works as a session musician and gives lessons.