Friedrich Lips turned the bayan into an instrument with seemingly limitless technical and sonic possibilities, revealing its special expressiveness and appeal. The article tells of his creative path, world tours, scientific and teaching work, and books and arrangements that became an important part of bayan art. This is the story of a master whose credo, to reveal the unknown and create beauty, inspired composers and captivated listeners.

Friedrich Lips created the reputation of the bayan as an instrument with unlimited technical and sonic possibilities. Using the specifics of sound production, he managed to reveal such mysteries of the instrument’s “soul” that they can only be called fantastic. By creating a unique aura of sound, Friedrich Lips’s bayan gives rise to a special magnetic force that captivates listeners and turns them into admirers of this genre. For composers who write for the bayan as well, this is a creative impulse, inspiring new canvases and even instrumental concertos for the maestro.
Friedrich Robertovich Lips was born in the Urals into a Russified German family. He graduated from the M.I. Glinka Magnitogorsk Music College and the Gnesins State Musical and Pedagogical Institute. Professor Lips is now head of the Department of Folk Instruments at the Gnesins Russian Academy of Music. He has toured with solo concerts in the USA, Canada, Japan, China, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, and other countries.
The author of numerous arrangements and transcriptions for the bayan, articles on the theory of bayan performance, and the initiator and editor-compilator of the multi-volume Anthology of Literature for the Bayan, as well as the book The Art of Playing the Bayan, which has been translated into German and published in Germany.
Friedrich Lips’s creative credo—“to discover the unknown and create beauty”—has earned him the fame of a great Master. If all publications about Lips the performer were gathered together, they would make up a multi-volume confession of reviewers devoted to years of creative work, artistic freedom, the art of interpretation, enthusiastic admiration, and everything born from the union of brilliant talent and persistent labor.