Airat Ichmouratov

Self-avowedly of ‘the Russian school’, Airat Ichmouratov (b. 1973) derives the fundamentals of his craft from such masters as Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky but inspiration from multiple sources, including his native Tatarstan and the surroundings of Montreal, the city which he has called home for more than twenty years. It says something about his eclectic interests that Ichmouratov acquired a taste for klezmer – a remarkable avocation, as he observes, for a Muslim by birth – while busking in the Montreal metro system. Indeed, he has made his mark as a performer as a clarinettist for Kleztory, an ensemble that recorded for Chandos with I Musici de Montréal