Eduard Artemyev

Eduard Nikolayevich Artemyev (; ; 30 November 1937 – 29 December 2022) was a Soviet and Russian composer of electronic music and film scores. Outside of Russia, he is mostly known for his soundtracks for films such as At Home Among Strangers, Solaris, Siberiade, Mirror, Stalker, and Burnt by the Sun. He was awarded the title People's Artist of Russia in 1999.

Biography Artemyev was born in Novosibirsk and studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Yuri Shaporin. His interest in electronic music and synthesizers began after his graduation in 1960, when electronic music was still in its infancy. He wrote his first composition in 1967, on one of the first synthesizers, the ANS synthesizer, which was developed by Soviet engineer, Yevgeny Murzin. He was thus an early composer of electronic music and a pioneer of it. His collaboration with the film director Andrei Tarkovsky in the 1970s made him well-known. He wrote the film scores of Tarkovsky's Solaris, Mirror and Stalker. Later, he also wrote film scores for Andrei Konchalovsky and Nikita Mikhalkov. His film scores and his music received numerous accolades as well as three Nika Awards. He licensed several excerpts from the Solaris soundtrack in order to use them in the Spanish production The Cosmonaut. Eduard Artemyev wrote a couple of songs the most famous of them Deltaplan by Valery Leontiev.

In 2001, he won the Special Silver St. George at the 23rd Moscow International Film Festival.

Artemyevs composition Campaign or Death of the hero (Siberiade theme) was used at the 2014 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Sochi, and his music theme from At Home Among Strangers was used at the closing ceremony.

Artemyev died on 29 December 2022, at the age of 85.

Film scores (selected) Solaris (Солярис, 1972) A Very English Murder (Чисто английское убийство, 1974) At Home Among Strangers (Свой среди чужих, чужой среди своих, 1974) Mirror (Зеркало, 1975) A Slave of Love (Раба любви, 1976) An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (Неоконченная пьеса для механического пианино, 1977) Territory (Территория, 1978) Stalker (Сталкер, 1979)

Other recordings (1985) Three Odes (2002)