“Simplicity is the final achievement.”
— Frédéric Chopin
 
 

Cyril Deaconoff is a composer of concert, film, video game and media music, conductor, and organist. His works received widespread critical acclaim in the United States and Europe.

He was born in Moscow, Russia and is a graduate of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Composition and Conducting). In December 2006, Deaconoff completed his Doctoral degree in Music at Indiana University Bloomington, where he also studied composition with Sven-David Sandström. His other composition and orchestration teachers included Andrei Golovin, Alexander Pirumov, Yuri Butsko, Roman Ledeniov, Cindy Cox and Clint Bajakian. In 2019 Cyril Deaconoff graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a degree in Technology and Applied composition. His music and sound design for several video games were presented at 2019 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Cyril’s recent film score for To Rest in Peace was recorded at Lucas Films, Skywalker Sound studios, and subsequently presented at a public event at SFCM. Most recently, Cyril Deaconoff composed music for a full feature film House of Temptation (new 2020 version), produced by San Francisco based Doc Zee Films. Vimeo links to both of these films are available by contacting the composer.

Dr. Deaconoff taught at Monterey Peninsula College, Carroll College, Wisconsin and Indiana University. Several of his recent works, including cantata Canticles of Love, Despair, and Hope; A Northern Tale; and orchestral overture Symphonic Parallels have been recently published by E.C. Schirmer.

 

Other recent conducting projects included a performance of Stockhausen Stimmung with Voices of Silicon Valley in 2017, 1st performance of this modern masterwork in San Francisco in more than 30 years, and Bach Johannes-Passion with members of Philharmonia Baroque, California Bach Society and other SF Bay area groups. As an organist. Cyril has been invited to perform organ recitals throughout the West Coast of the US, including San Francisco’s Palace of the Legion of Honor. In 2013, he was the only American organist invited to participate in the Cesar Franck International organ competition in Haarlem, Netherlands.

Dr. Deaconoff’s recent work, String Quartet No.1, was selected by the San Jose Chamber Orchestra for their concert of contemporary music entitled Valley Voices. Dr. Deaconoff received commissions from the West Bay Opera and the Vallejo Choral Society. Cyril Deaconoff is currently Composer and Sound designer for Doc Zee Films, Artistic Director of Voices of Silicon Valley and Music Director/Organist at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in San Francisco.

In November 2011 West Bay Opera in San Francisco Bay area presented a workshop performance of Cyril Deaconoff's new opera, The Last Tycoon, after F. Scott Fitzgerald. In 2018, The Last Tycoon was included by West Edge Opera into the Snapshot program of new works by California composers performed on the San Francisco Opera campus, War Memorial Veterans’ Building.

In November 2020, Orpheus Classical label based in Madrid, Paris and New York released “Voices of Our Time”, an album featuring several works by Cyril Deaconoff, including Our Time for chorus and electronics and String Quartet, as well as Stockhausen Stimmung performed by Voices of Silicon Valley under Cyril’s direction. These works received praise in subsequent reviews by MusicWebInternational (UK), the San Francisco Classical Voice, Sonograma (Spain) and Opusklassiek.nl in The Netherlands.