Nesterov Oleg Anatolyevich - Russian musician, poet and composer: biography, creativity, discography

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Fortunately, in contemporary art there are creative personalities of a special kind. Bulgakov called this not by belonging to the creative craft, but by the Master. Nesterov Oleg Anatolyevich is one of those. He is accomplished and mature, both in terms of his views on life and the role of art in it. The professional with a capital letter is respected, behind him is the baggage of a successful group leader and a sought-after producer. At a time when the musical world is painted in the fading colors of decadence, Nesterov, acting on the principle of "do as I do", points to the path of real creative development.

When he speaks with his low voice, you can still hear him. Because people involuntarily fall silent and listen to the words spoken. This person really has something to tell, because he looks into the world with a smile and speaks to people in the language of compassion, care, intuition, forgiveness and, of course, love.

Childhood, youth

Future leader"Megapolis" was born in Moscow on 1961-09-03. During his studies at the school with in-depth study of German, Oleg Nesterov thoroughly learned this language. He received a higher technical education, graduating from the Moscow Electrotechnical Institute of Communications. In one of his interviews, Oleg Anatolyevich admitted that from a young age, music was the dominant in his life. Everything else seemed to go along with it. The works of the Beatles and Vysotsky, recorded on a tape reel, once awakened in him a thirst for creativity.

The musician still loves to perform songs by Vladimir Vysotsky at his concerts in a special psychedelic manner. These hits of the 70s and 80s performed by Nesterov sound absolutely unique. Listener reviews are unanimous: he sings not as a performer, but as an author. It seems that Oleg Nesterov himself composed the songs about the tattoo of his beloved, about the sprinter who was forced to run the stayer distance. The biography of the young man's work began typically, in the spirit of his time - from work in his speci alty.

After graduating from the institute, he worked for five years at an international communication station with Germany. However, Oleg soon made a choice in the direction of creativity. The Rubicon was passed on 1988-08-08 (an interesting date, isn't it). Such decisiveness can be appreciated by those who lived in those times of leveling and planning. Nesterov only longed for intellectual freedom, about which he would later say: “A person, ideally, should simply do what he cannot live without.”

Creating a rock band

27.05.1987years young, then still curly, Nesterov, as a soloist and leader, organized a team of like-minded people. At first, it was called emphatically cool: "Christmas Bazaar." However, since the guys set serious creative goals for themselves, soon there was a reassessment of values and, accordingly, a kind of rebranding. This is how the Megapolis group appeared.

A month later, young musicians loudly declared themselves in the capital's recreation center named after. Gorbunkov as part of a combined concert of the rock laboratory. As the press noted, their composition "Fishermen" broke the hall and became the most popular on this show. In addition to the soloist, as part of the musical group they played:

• on keyboards - Arkady Martynenko, Alexander Suzdalev;
• on drums Mikhail Alesin;
• on bass Andrey Belov.

From the very beginning, Nesterov's associates paid great attention to the lyrics of their songs. They were respected for their high style in the motley Moscow rock scene. In their performance, they found the original sound of the line:

• "Debut";
• "Christmas Romance";
• "There" from Brodsky;
• "Wet lies";
• "Mary of Egypt";
• "Dedications to Denis Silk" by Alexander Barash;
• "New Moscow sirtaki" by Andrey Voznesensky.

First and second albums

A year later, Megapolis, which demonstrated its class, is already professionally produced by Stas Namin. The Melodiya recording company releases their start-up album Morning, Oleg Nesterov creates songs in collaboration with his bandmates. The musician burns with creativity, andalready in 1989 the album "Poor people" appeared. The disc in the capital is becoming extremely popular, the press calls Megapolis a "purely Moscow band".

The creative team actively performs at domestic rock festivals. Naturally, another rise in their popularity follows, thanks to the clips "Christmas Romance" and "Moskvichka", filmed by producer Ivan Demidov. These songs are lyrical, sentimental, good for the 90s. There is no second bottom in them, young people just sing about things close to themselves: about love, about their hometown.

But fate favors the talented, and soon Oleg Nesterov will take full advantage of this chance. The group's discography will be replenished with a new album - the highest creative take-off point of "Megapolis" of the 20th century.

German language experiment

Oleg Anatolyevich talks about this page of his group's creativity with a smile. Suddenly, quite unexpectedly for young musicians, they received an invitation to perform in Karl-Marx-Stadt. At first, everyone was taken aback. However, Oleg Nesterov is a creative musician. At the brainstorming session held by the group, it was decided, firstly, to translate into German and adapt time-tested Soviet hits to the understanding of the Germans, and secondly, to translate into Russian the hits of Germany of the 30s and 40s from cult films.

Just a week after the signal disk was sent to Germany, quite unexpectedly, a representative of the inviting party came to Moscow to sign the contract. The guys were dumbfounded: the Megapolis group itself did not have the legal right to sign,it was necessary to get both "go-ahead" and a signature from the Russian musical community. Nesterov guessed to bring the German to Oscar Borisovich Feltsman, the author of the source songs for his cover versions. The famous composer vouched for the guys.

The funny thing is that the German who arrived did not understand a word of Russian, but he constantly sang tenderly: "Karl-Marx-Stadt, Karl-Marx-Stadt." Then Feltsman told Oleg that this song would be with him throughout his life.

The tracks created for the tour, according to the contract, were recorded at a German studio and included in the new Megapolis album, released in 1994. The disc was called the Berlin Postmen's Chapel and gained popularity in both countries at once. This album became a real disco-club hit for several years.

Time out in creativity

The postmodern era and its style in creativity have become obsolete. The musicians of the group, being in excellent relations with each other, by agreement for a while decided to suspend active performances. Later, Nesterov will explain the motivation for this step figuratively: unpromisingly self-respecting musicians during the crisis of the genre continue to create in the style of rehashing jokes or setting poems to music

The final touch of the history of "Megapolis" sample of the XX century was his awarding the "Golden Gramophone" for the song "Asterisk".

Further money earned in Germany allowed each musician to pursue their own projects.

Producer

A special facet of the leader's creativity"Megapolis" became a producer activity. Music lovers of the 90s and the first decade of the new century were happy to buy up the music discs of the vocalists led by them, where the details of the recording studio were written in small letters, which Oleg Nesterov called unobtrusively and with taste: "Bullfinches-Music". He took up musicians who asked for support in planning their career from the mid-90s until 2010, respectively, sacrificing his own creativity. Nesterov called this period of a fourteen-year pause in writing and performing his songs musical asceticism.

Since 1997, the promotion of the project of the singer Masha Makarova "Masha and the Bears" began. This was followed by other hit projects in collaboration with Nike Borzov, Alina Orlova, Evgeny Grishkovets, as well as a number of rock bands. In total, more than 1200 songs were recorded at the Snegiri studio.

Two years ago, Oleg Nesterov temporarily suspended this project, selling exclusive rights to his compositions to the Russian record monopoly Warner Music Russia. Producing gave the opportunity to the leader of "Megapolis" to realize and formulate his new approaches in creativity. Further, he simply could not write and perform songs.

Maturity. Album "Supertango"

In 2010, the press was perplexed. What was the reason that Oleg Nesterov returned to the role of the leader of the group? Inspiration from the stars he produces? Dating and chatting with celebrities?

"Megapolis" after 14 years, in 2010, presented the musicalpublic his new album "Supertango". Criticism immediately noted: the disc is absolutely different from the previous ones and is made in a completely different, deep and dynamic style. Music and lyrics are relevant and in demand. The album is manly laconic, emotionally restrained, but at the same time overly expressive. This release has become a real statement of the creativity of the 21st century band Megapolis, which opens a new direction in Russian rock.

What was his novelty? Oleg Nesterov, who emerged as a personality in the 60s, is perhaps the first among modern musicians to finally give up fruitless attempts to revive decadence that has become obsolete. He decided to encapsulate into modern music the sprouts of the humanistic ideals of the 60s, barely awakened to life, but stifled by totalitarianism. Note: the public positively perceived this fundamentally new direction in creativity, as if they had been expecting such changes for a long time.

Project "From the life of planets"

The leader of "Megapolis" in the presentation emphasizes that this project is not about the past, but about the future. The task of the project is to tell the current twenty-year-olds about the twenty-year-olds of the sixties, the same talented ones who succeeded in everything in their work. At the same time, they, like the decadent creative people of the 21st century, fail to achieve almost anything.

The founder of the project asks a difficult question: could our today be brighter only thanks to a different movie? And Oleg Anatolyevich Nesterov himself answers that yes, he could. After all, the decade of the 60s for the development of Russian culturemeant no less than the silver age.

Representatives of the older generation still remember how our cinema suddenly burst into the forefront of the world. Soviet directors, not favored by the pro-party authorities, were recognized as world-class masters and annually received awards in Cannes and Venice. It is clearly seen that this positive ended suddenly and abruptly. Totalitarianism, having absolute levers of influence, powerfully strangled the progressive and truthful cinema.

Directors and destinies

Oleg Nesterov awakens the civil conscience of society in his project. Remember the great American film-allegory with Jack Nicholson and the key phrase of the protagonist: “At least I tried!”

The musician and producer recalls the civic courage of Soviet directors who are trying to break the stereotypes that are present in our country and have become obsolete all over the world. He tells listeners about remarkable personalities who were under oppression, who sought to create truthful images that society has long demanded.

"What would happen if their creations reached people?" - Oleg Anatolyevich asks the audience. The answer is clear: the Russians would position themselves differently in the state. If there were other heroes, there would be a different firmware in the brains of people. If Shukshin had been allowed to shoot Stepan Razin in the 60s, perhaps they would have imagined who a Russian person is in a completely different way now … But it didn’t happen.

As an example of rejection, the leader of "Megapolis" cites Motyl's unfilmed film about Gulag prisoners who preferred to flee to Norway after the raidfascist aviation joining the soldiers defending the island from the fascists - a piece of Soviet land. Why was this movie cancelled? Is it incomprehensible? In defiance of official propaganda, another, righteous patriotism was shown of a simple, but high-spirited person, who humbly sacrifices his life in a difficult time for the Motherland in a Christian way. Not for Great Russia, not for the party, for Stalin, but because he simply cannot live in any other way.

And absolutely tragic is the fate of Gennady Fedorovich Shpalikov, the creator of the famous song "And I'm walking, walking around Moscow …". In the 60s, he tried to create a film that would inspire the spirit of his native metropolis, its ability to inspire, instill a love of life. He was rotten, his talent, as if on a wolf hunt, was overlaid with flags of prohibitions, deprived of the opportunity to create and work. He drank himself from grief and died.

Thanks to Nesterov, the disgraced directors appear before the deceived generation as they were - heroes defending the right of the duped people to the Future. And the Master asks his listeners and viewers the question: “Is it really all in vain?”

Literary creativity

As follows from the interview, Oleg Nesterov prefers to write novels while on sabbatical. He diplomatically does not mention the name of his comrade, who kindly provides him with a house on the seashore. Books are born - he believes - when their subject is really loved by the author. Then the idea is built, as if by notes.

This was his first novel "Skirt", which tells the author's boring version of the birth of a musical stylerock in Nazi Germany. The musician wrote the second book "Heavenly Stockholm" about the time of the 60s.

Judging by the reviews, Oleg Anatolyevich has a light style, it is easy and interesting to read.

Wanderlust

Another facet of this personality is a passion for travel. “Staying on other lands,” says the leader of Megapolis, “awakens inspiration, makes you look at people with a fresh, unblinded look, and see the perspective more clearly.”

Conclusion

He ends his concerts with two of his favorite phrases. The first one is “thank you, beloved”, the second one is “cheer up, youth”. Oleg Nesterov always speaks to the audience in a simple and understandable language of a wise and kind person.

Getting acquainted with his work, there is only one thing to regret. About the fact that today, and not only in music, we have very few Masters kindred to him in spirit, who delight with their creativity and awaken people to awareness.