Anton Batagov was born in Moscow in 1965, graduated from the Moscow Conservatory. He received a special award at the International Tchaikovsky Competition (1986) and a number of other awards. He was the artistic director of the Alternativa festival (1989–1996). In 1990, Melodiya CD label released his debut album – Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus (Twenty Contemplations onInfant Jesus) by Olivier Messiaen. In 1997 he stopped performing live for 12 years to focus on recording projects. As a composer, Batagov is a minimalist; the Los Angeles Times referred to him as “a Russian Terry Riley”. He is the author of tunes for major Russian TV channels: NTV (1997–1998), RTR (1998–2000), Kultura (Culture) (2002–12). In 2009, he received the Steppenwolf Award in the Best Music category.