Pavel Karmanov was born in 1970 in Bratsk, Irkutsk region, into a family of musicians. He began writing music in Novosibirsk at the age of five. He graduated from the Central Music School in 1988 and from the Moscow Conservatory in 1995. His teachers at various times were Yu. Kholopov, A. Leman, A. Bykanov, G. Dmitriev and A. Nikolaev. In his school and student years he took an active part in Moscow's concert life. He composed music in different styles, from "serial" and "sonoristic" to "pseudo-baroque". Since the early nineties he has been captivated by the aesthetics of the post-avant-garde and "minimalism".
Today Pavel Karmanov's music is marked by tonal clarity, impressionistic colour, concise form, an original refraction of world post-avant-garde practice, the use of any contemporary style, and various audiovisual effects in concert performance.
Since 1996 Pavel Karmanov has been a member of the Union of Moscow Composers. He is a regular participant in music festivals such as "Moscow Autumn" (1991, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2006), "Alternativa" (1996, 1997, 1998), the Oleg Kagan Memorial Festival (Moscow, 1992), the Anatoly Vedernikov Memorial Festival (1997), Sound Route 1999 Tokyo-Moscow in Japan, the "Dialogue" festival (Moscow, 1996), the Denisov Festival in Tomsk (2003), "Warsaw Autumn 2005" and the Shostakovich Festival in Seattle (USA, 2006). Pavel Karmanov's works are performed in the Great, Small and Rachmaninov Halls of the Moscow Conservatory, at the House of Composers, at the DOM cultural centre, in the Great and Small Halls of the St Petersburg Philharmonia, and at concerts and festivals in cities around the world.
The interpreters of Pavel Karmanov's music include the pianist and harpsichordist Alexei Lubimov, the violist and conductor Yuri Bashmet, the violinist, violist and conductor Nazar Kozhukhar and his The Pocket Symphony, the violist Mikhail Bereznitsky, the violinist Tatiana Grindenko and Opus Posth, the percussionist Mark Pekarsky and his ensemble, the pianists Alexei Goribol and Polina Osetinskaya, the violinist Vladislav Pesin and the musicians of One Orchestra (St Petersburg), the Contemporary Music Ensemble (ASM), the sacred music ensemble Sirin, and the Seattle Chamber Players (USA).
Pavel Karmanov wrote the music for Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich's production "Bifem" after the play by Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, and for many feature and documentary films. His work includes the music for Timur Bekmambetov's "The Arena" ("Gladiatrix") and "GAZ: Russian Cars", Andrei Proshkin's "The Soldier's Decameron", Maria Mozhar's "Enemies", Nurbek Egen's "Closed Space", Alexander Kott's "The Scarecrow" and Matvei Zhivov's "The Letter", among others. Karmanov created the soundtracks for the television series "Only You" by Nana Djordjadze, "A Place in the Sun" and "Artists" by Ali Khamraev, and "The Multiplier of Sorrow" by Oleg Fesenko, as well as for the films of the documentary maker Alexei Khanyutin, among them "Music for Fireworks", "Context", "Evacuation" and "The Road". Since 1997 Pavel Karmanov's music has been heard constantly in a multitude of television commercials and in the design of television and radio programmes.
His projects include "Vertep" at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall (2002) with the sacred music ensemble Sirin, the Academy of Early Music directed by Tatiana Grindenko, the group Vezhlivy Otkaz, Mark Pekarsky's percussion ensemble and the orchestra Gnesin Virtuosi (conductor Mikhail Khokhlov); the projects "13 Pockets" and "Birthdays" at the DOM cultural centre in Moscow (2000-2006); and a composer's evening in the Small Hall of the St Petersburg Philharmonia (2004). A notable event was the premiere of the piece "Spring in January" in the Great Hall of the Conservatory for Yuri Bashmet, Alexei Lubimov and the orchestra New Russia (2005). The piece "Get in!!" closed the festival "Moscow Autumn 2006".
In 2008 Nazar Kozhukhar and his ensemble The Pocket Symphony recorded and released, on the label DOM Records, Pavel Karmanov's debut CD "RE-music", with chamber music from various years.
In 2008, commissioned by the Cambridge Russian Society (UK), Pavel Karmanov wrote a congratulatory piece for the 800th anniversary of the University of Cambridge, premiered during its English tour by the Moscow Credo Quartet led by the violinist Asya Sorshneva.
Since 2000 Pavel Karmanov has been a permanent member of the Moscow rock group Vezhlivy Otkaz (led by Roman Suslov), with which he performs regularly as pianist and flautist.
Pavel Karmanov lived and worked in Moscow. He died suddenly of heart failure on 23 November 2024, aged 54.