Balalaika Alexei Arkhipovsky is one of the few musicians who manage to combine work in the traditional "folk" channel with the development of their own path, often much brighter and more original. Brilliant successes precisely outside the traditional folk field, however, do not become a reason for the musician to abandon tradition. Alexei, who can rightly be called the best balalaika player in the country (if not even the planet), pays equal attention to work in leading Russian folk ensembles, as well as to his own projects, in which his undeservedly unpopular instrument is fully revealed and makes the most “uncomfortable” audience applaud.
A native of the Krasnodar Territory, Arkhipovsky at the end of the music school was the owner of a number of first places in regional competitions. Continuing his education in Moscow, a young musician after graduating from college. The Gnesins entered the Smolensky Russian Folk Orchestra, began appearing on Central Television in 1988, and recorded their first two albums with him in 1989 and 1992.
Alexey’s arrangements differ in technique and depth of thought: far from the generally accepted standard of “populist”, Arkhipovsky stood out sharply among conservative musicians. By the mid-90s, he actively gave concerts in Russia, in 1996 he began working with Lyudmila Zykina and the State Academic Russian Folk Ensemble “Russia”, often traveled abroad, gave solo concerts at prestigious cultural forums such as “Expo-92” (Spain ), Frankfurt Book Fair (Germany, 2004), the festival “Russian Evenings” at the Lincoln Center (USA, 2004), performed on Dutch television.
The combination of interest in traditional folk music, virtuoso technique and modern thinking allowed Arkhipovsky to become one of the central figures of the Ethnosphere movement. He twice participated in the festivals “Ethnosphere. Russian Sessions ”, in collaboration with Sergey Filatov, developed a new program for a small ensemble and took part in a number of ambitious projects, among which are speeches at the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg and the CIS Summit in Sochi in 2006