Yuri Anatolievich Poteyenko, was born on December 5, 1960, he is a Russian composer of film music and has been the recipient of the Golden Eagle Award for best original film music no les than four times, he won the awards in 2010,2013, 2016 and 2018. His scores for motion pictures which are produced in The Russian Federation are vibrantly thematic and filled with overwhelming and highly emotive compositions, his style evokes what many of us film music collectors look upon as being grandiose and symphonic as opposed to containing numerous samples and electronic instrumentation. His works for cinema among some of the most melodic and lush that I have heard in many years. A lot of his scores are available on KEEP MOVING RECORDS, who themselves have an impressive and varied catalogue of film music. Poteyenko, scored the Russian made SAVING LENINGRAD in 2019, the film which was directed by Aleksey Kozlov, is an action packed movie set in 1941 and based upon true events which took place at Lake Ladoga.
During the evacuation of people from Leningrad, a barge was bombed by Nazi warplanes and sunk sending it to the bottom of the lake, taking with it more than 1,000 souls most of whom were civilians. At the same time, nearly 500 more people were killed on a barge that was being towed by the gunship, “Selemdzha”, which was carrying fuel and military supplies to Leningrad. Few were saved. The film takes place during the fight on the Eastern Front and builds up to start of the German Siege of Leningrad. The musical score is robust, vibrant and most of all affecting, it contains a number of action led pieces, but also has within it emotive and sensitive compositions, which the composer blends flawlessly into the more dramatic cues and underlines the storyline with these perfectly. This is a large-scale score with the music being performed by The State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia. There are also a few synthetic sounds within the work, but these are minimal as the composer relies upon the symphonic rather than the drone like synthetic. This for me is what a film score should be, it is not just supportive of the movie, but also has to it an aura and a musical persona that as a collector of movie scores have not heard or experienced for a while, this is a breath of fresh symphonic and luxuriously thematic air and I ask you to check it out, you will not be disappointed. Recommended, available from Keep Moving records.
MOVIE MUSIC INTERNATIONAL. (MMI) . 