Evgueni Galperine

Evgueni Galperine has composed numerous scores for motion pictures along with standalone pieces in a modern style that regularly incorporates electronics. Many of his film scores, including several for prominent Hollywood productions, emerged through close partnership with his brother Sacha Galperine.

Born in 1974 in Chelyabinsk, Russia, at that time within the Soviet Union, Evgueni Galperine grew up with a father of Ukrainian heritage, the film composer Youli Galperine. The family relocated to Kyiv during his childhood, then after four years shifted onward to Moscow, where he began intensive musical training at the Gnessin State Musical College. At age 16 the household moved again, this time to Paris, France, allowing Galperine to pursue further studies first at the Conservatoire Boulogne (CRR Boulogne-Billancourt) and subsequently at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMD) in composition and theory. Following graduation he created music for theater productions and advertising campaigns. Meanwhile his brother Sacha Galperine trained initially on violin before turning toward rock and electronic music. Evgueni’s own work in film scoring opened with the 2005 Kurdish-German feature Fratricide (“Brudermord”).

From 2003 onward he concentrated heavily on film music, working first independently and then, beginning in 2009, as a duo with Sacha. Their joint career launched with the soundtrack for Éric Lartigau’s 2010 film The Big Picture. Drawing on their varied musical experiences, the brothers attracted commissions for major productions, among them films by Hollywood directors Barry Sonnenfeld and Barry Levinson; they supplied additional music in some cases and served as principal soundtrack composers for others, such as Levinson’s 2017 The Wizard of Lies. Their score for the 2017 film Loveless earned a European Film Award for best film score of the year. In 2020 they composed for Radioactive, the biographical film about Marie Curie, and returned in 2022 with the music for Lartigau’s #iamhere. Galperine maintained his separate path as a concert-music composer, continuing to produce works that frequently feature an electronic component. In 2022 he released the solo album Evgueni Galperine: Theory of Becoming on the ECM New Series label.