Born on the outskirts of Moscow, Evgeny Grinko is an independent pianist, guitarist and composer who started his musical career playing percussion with avant-garde and noise rock bands. But in 2010, while on break from touring, the musician penned a little waltz on the piano which changed the course of his career. Since then, Evgeny Grinko has scored for cinema and television and developed an instrumental and modern classical repertoire over three short albums and a few singles. Self-released on 6 July 2018 last, the Tiny Mouse Tales EP is the musician’s fourth album after a three year hiatus.
Evgeny Grinko literally burst onto the modern classical scene with a charming piano-based piece simply titled “valse” accompanied by a piano accordion. Shot with a hand-held camera at sunset in an exterior setting, the associated video was released in late 2010 and now boasts over 15 million views on YouTube, a rare feat for an independent musician.
The track was officially released on his 2014 album “Ice for Aureliano Buendia” with added strings. In 2015, Turkish pop music singer-songwriter Mabel Matiz recorded “valse” with new lyrics, thus introducing the music of the Russian composer to an entirely new audience.
The influence of Yann Tiersen is very clear of course, and so is the intimate chamber music format or the rich popular culture of his native Russia – the musician covers for instance Soviet composer Lev Knipper’s “Полюшкa, поле” (“Meadowland” or “Cavalry of the Steppes”) as Field on his 2015 EP “Silent Like Water”.
Since his début, Evgeny Grinko’s sound has expanded considerably from solo piano on “Winter Sunshine” (2011), acoustic guitar, string quartet and accordion on “Ice for Aureliano Buendia” (2014) to a lavish orchestral sound on Tiny Mouse Tales featuring concert harp, woodwind instruments, glockenspiel and sparse electronics.
With short pieces such as “Prologue”, “Epilogue” or “Carousel”, the Tiny Mouse Tales EP sketches wonderful cinematic themes begging to be expanded and heard on the big screen.
