Born in Porozovo (the Grodno region) in 1959, he studied composition with Ihar Lutchanok and Dmitri Smolski at the Belorussian State Conservatory (diploma in 1986). He continued his education on a postgraduate course with Sergey Slonimsky in St. Petersburg and at master classes given by Ton de Leeuw.
He was the initiator of the International Festival of Modern Chamber Music in Minsk in 1991, which was also held in 1993 and 1995. In 1997-1999 he worked at the Music Academies in Gdańsk and Kraków on
a Polish Government grant. In Gdańsk he worked on the orchestral piece Barbara Radziwiłł, while in Kraków he collaborated with the electroacoustic music studio.
His symphony Lux aeterna won Second Prize at the National Composers’ Competition in Minsk (1991). It had its first performance in Gdańsk during the city’s millennium celebrations in 1997. Paplausky’s pieces were also performed at the ‘New Belorussian Music’ concerts during the Festival ‘Days of Music by Kraków Composers’ in Kraków (Sonata for Viola and Piano in 1998 and the symphony Dea Luna in 1999). The choral cycle The Weather of an Already Late Autumn won Second Prize in the chamber category at the International Composers’ Competition Jihlava-2000 in Prague.
Poplausky is keenly interested in the history of musical life in Belarus. In 1992 he joined the Belorussian Capella, whose aim is to carry out research into ancient Belorussian music with a view to introducing it to the present-day concert repertoire. The outcome of wide-ranging archive studies in libraries in London, Kraków, Warsaw, Poznań, Gdańsk and St Petersburg made it possible to organize an annual festival of Belorussian music. Poplausky has also made an interesting attempt to reconstruct the theatre of Urszula Radziwiłł. He wrote the script for the ballet Teahonia, which is a synthesis of dance, dramatic action, singing and music. The same idea inspired him to write the libretto to the ballet Polonaise, with music by Michał Kleofas Ogiński (1765–1833), which was staged in 1995. He participated in the ‘Acanthes 2000/ircam’ summer courses in Kraków. His work Light on the Path for instrumental ensemble, commissioned by the Warsaw Autumn Festival, was performed during the 2000 event by the Classic-Avantgarde Soloists’ Ensemble conducted by Vladimir Baidov.
In 2002 Jauhen Poplausky received a Polish Government grant to work in the Electroacoustic Music Studio of the Music Academy in Kraków and the Experimental Studio of Polish Radio.

Selected works: Lux aeterna, symphony for tenor, mixed choir and orchestra with words by L. Emilit (1990), My soul, vocal cycle for baritone, flute and piano with words by M. Bahdanovitch (1990), Porazawa, sketches for orchestra (1991), Moonlight People, chamber ballet for guitar, string quartet and percussion (1995), Dea Luna for orchestra (1996), Refraction for organ and percussion (1997), The Weather of an Already Late Autumn, cycle for mixed choir and percussion instruments set to poems by Leopold Staff (1998), Barbara Radziwiłł for orchestra (1999), Time Corrosion for tape (1999), Lunayontse in space for tape (1999), Light on the Path (2000), Path in the Clouds for instrumental ensemble (2001), Path in the Clouds for oboe, percussion and tape (2002), The Gate for instrumental ensemble (2003).

My – Her was written in 2005 for the Classic-Avantgarde Soloists’ Ensemble.
Consciously or subconsciously artists keep on referring to Socrates’s thesis ‘Learn yourself’. At the beginning of the 20th century, the great painter Vassily Kandinsky, in his treatise Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Munich, 1912) made many interesting observations about the importance of subconsciousness in the arts. I am interested in this world – the world in which emotions are reflected on an irrational plane. While it is difficult to learn oneself, how can one comprehend
a woman’s soul? Her concern and indignation, her silence and ecstasy hide the pain which reaches into the world of unreality and fantasy, captivating in its reconciliation of the earthly and the heavenly, and transformed into sublimated feelings, a caress, love and anger…
The form of the piece is concealed in its very title. It is manifested in the two dominant elements: the piano whose line is transformed into timbral-resonant sounds, and the cello which melts into the timbres of other instruments.
The work is dedicated to Helena Leszczyńska.

Jauhen Poplausky