ALEXEY SHMURAK was born in St. Petersburg in 1986. He is a composer and sound artist based in Kyiv, Ukraine. After training as a pianist and graduating from the National Music Academy of Ukraine in music composition, Alexey started exploring various fields and practices: classical, contemporary classical and experimental music composition and performance. Shmurak's music explores genre borders, nostalgia, deconstruction, attention gaps and interruptions. As a performer, he frequently employs voice, drums, winds, electronics and surrounding space. As an educator, he gives lectures and workshops in the fields of critical listening, political and social aspects of music, borders of disciplines and discourses.

Alexey had numerous performances and multimedia projects at Akademie der Künste Berlin, WDR hall Köln, International Summer Courses for New Music Darmstadt, Muffatwerk Munich, Warsaw Philharmonic, Moscow Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre, Gogolfest Kyiv, Lviv Philharmonic, Platform Moscow festival, Nizhny Novgorod National Centre for Contemporary Arts.

Alexey was a resident of Plivka (2016-2018), an interdisciplinary experimental art space in Kyiv. He worked closely with venue’s curators: Dima Kazakov, Lotsia publishing house co-founder, and Sasha Andrusyk, Ukho music agency co-founder. Since 2010 Alexey is a long time partner of Goethe-Institut mission in Kyiv. With choreographer Alexander Liubashin (Russia) and Goethe-Institut departments (in St. Petersburg, Tashkent and Munich) Alexey curated art-laboratories "Intersection of Parallels" (2016-2018) researching interdisciplinarity.

Alexey has an ongoing collaboration with a Kyiv-based electroacoustic artist Oleg Shpudeiko specializing in modular synthesis. Their field of interests includes reimagining of traditional and old music forms, as well as sound and audiovisual installations. Alexey's and Oleg's art works are in collections of the National Art Museum of Ukraine and Museum of Modern Art of Odessa.