Konstantyn Napolov

Konstantyn Napolov graduated with his Bachelor degree in 2013 and Master diploma in 2015 cum laude in the percussion department of The Royal Conservatory at The Hague educated by Fedor Teunisse, Luuk Nagtegaal, Marinus Komst and Wim Vos. Foregoing he has succeeded in getting his Bachelor and Master of Percussion and Conducting at the National Music Academy Kiev (Ukraine).

With his Percussion-Trio ‘Davai Perkusion’ Konstantyn won the first prize during the Grachtenfestival Concours at The Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Twice they ended up as a finalists of the Kamermuziek Concours Almere, IPC Luxembourg, won the first prize at ‘Oh, Oh Intro’ – popfestival The Hague.

During his first year of Master he was accepted to do his Erasmus-study at the conservatory with the oldest percussion traditions – Cité de la Musique et de la Danse Conservatoire de Strasbourg, educated by Emmanuel Séjourné, Denis Riedinger and Stephan Fougeroux. Beside this he participated in several master classes by wellknown percussionists like Peter Sadlo, Mark Pekarski, Christian Dierstein, Paul Mootz, Marta Klimasara, Robyn Schulkowsky, Nancy Zaltsman and many others.

Konstantyn is a great promoter of contemporary percussion till now he premiered more than 10 new works. Together with Kaija Saariaho, Martijn Padding, Unsuk Chin, John Luther Adams, Philippe Manoury (with all in person) he is working on a solo and chamber music repertoire. Together with Steve Reich they worked on numerous of his pieces and particularly performed his master work “Music for 18 musicians” at the stadium with more then 5000 in public in time of “Lowlands festival 2013”.

He also continued as a soloist, won several prizes and took part in prestigious world-wide competitions, among others during the ARD Musikwettbewerb München, Tromp IMC Eindhoven, Dutch Classical Talent and the Grachtenfestival Concours. In March 2015 won two 1st Prizes at the International Music competition in Belgrade Serbia, as a soloist and with own Duo Delonix, and in 2016 he Won the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds prijs 15.000€.

Within the NJO Konstantyn went from playing Tam-Tam part in Shostakovich’s 11th symphony till the nomination “Young Artist in Residence”. In the same year he was nominated by the prestigious international festival for “Grachtenfestivalprijs” and “Artist in Residence Grachtenfestival Amsterdam”. The honor moment was to perform with the renowned show-percussion group Percossa for The Dutch ministry and The Dutch Royal family.

For the summer of 2015 Konstantyn has been invited to participate in the masterclasses at the well-known ‘Chosen Vale’ in America, for which he was granted the prestigious Colin Currie scholarship, masterclasses at New York’s ‘The Juilliard School ‘ and Boston Conservatory. And already for the winter 2016 Konstantyn won the principal position at “The World Percussion Group 2016” directed by renowned English percussion duo “Maraca2” which includes more then 2 month tour through the USA and after that he was invited to give the masterclasses and to perform in the Mexico.

Since 2014 Konstantyn Napolov is Haupt-Pauker (principal-percussionist) at Mannheimer Philharmoniker (Germany).

photo: from TTK0027 booklet