Mihkel Bravat

Mihkel Bravat (real name Mikk Murdvee, born 20 March 1980) is a violinist, conductor and poet.

He was born in Tallinn. In 1998, he completed Tallinn Music High School with certificates of merit in the speciality of violin. Bravat has studied the violin at the Estonian Academy of Music from 1998–1999 and at Sibelius Academy in Helsinki from 1999–2005. He has conducted the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, the Sibelius Academy Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vanemuine Theatre Symphony Orchestra and the St Petersburg Academic Symphony Orchestra. He has performed as a soloist of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, the Sibelius Academy Symphony Orchestra and some other orchestras, also played as a chamber musician and worked as a concert master of several orchestras.

In his early youth, Bravat issued three poetry collections as samizdat publications: Kõverpeegelpildid (‘Curved Mirror Images’, 1999), järgmine (‘next’, 2000, also contains short prose) and kolm (‘three’, 2001, also contains short prose). His poems have also been published in the yearbook of the literary grouping Tallinna Noored Tegijad (Young Doers of Tallinn) Mõned ei tahtnudki (‘Some Didn’t Even Want to’). In his poems, critics have found tragic romanticism and searching for truth between the sense and senselessness of life, between the essential and inessential. The author tries to watch life from the viewpoint of an outsider but is repeatedly hurt, nonetheless.

In 2023, the Tuum publisher issued Mihkel Bravat’s poetry collection Sada linnuund (‘A Hundred Dreams of Birds’).

L. P. (Translated by I. A.)

Books in Estonian

Poetry
Kõverpeegelpildid: valitud tekste. Tallinn, 2000, 36 lk.
Sada linnuund. Tallinn: Tuum, 2023, 184 lk.