Born in St Petersburg Zhenya Strigalev took up the saxophone as a teenager, at age 17 winning “The Best Saxophonist" award in a well known St. Petersburg jazz competition. Soon after he began performing at many leading European, Russian, and UK Festivals, as well as starting to tour internationally. Since graduating from London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Music, Zhenya has cut a dynamic path between the London and New York jazz scenes. He’s worked with some of today’s most forward thinking musicians including (Matt Garrison, Chris "Daddy" Dave, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Joseph "Foley" McCreary from Miles Davis fame, Alex Sipiagin, Taylor Eigsti, Larry Grenadier, Nasheet Waites...) and appeared at many prestigious jazz festivals and concert venues, performing extensively in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Russia, Czech Republic, Austria, Britain, India, Switzerland...In London, he played in the leading jazz venues including regular appearances at London Int'l Jazz Festival and headlining at Ronnie Scotts with his original projects. Having arrived in the city with almost no money and just his saxophone is testimony to Strigalev’s obvious talent, tenacious creativity and sheer hard work that he’s now regarded as one of the most exciting young musicians in London. Now with six albums under his belt, Strigalev has reached a new level of artistic maturity on his latest album Never Group. You can listen to the new album FROM THIS PRIVATE LINK.
