Alexander Rozum was a Soviet baritone singer and teacher. He was born on April 16, 1923, in Romashkovo, in Moscow District of Moscow Province, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, and died on January 24, 1987, in Moscow. He was awarded the title People's Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1978.
He was born into a peasant family with seven sons. In 1941 he entered the Institute of Philosophy and Literature in Moscow, but did not complete his studies because of the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. He worked at a factory and took part in amateur artistic performances.
In 1949 he became a laureate of an amateur arts review chaired by G. G. Aden, a teacher at the Gnessin State Musical Pedagogical Institute, and soon afterward entered his class. From 1949 to 1955 he studied at the Gnessin State Musical Pedagogical Institute. At the same time, from 1949 to 1952, he was a soloist of the Russian Song Choir of the All-Union Radio of the USSR State Television and Radio. From 1952 he performed with the Soviet Opera Ensemble of the All-Russian Theatrical Society, and from 1954 he worked with the Moscow Philharmonic.
Rozum was the first performer of leading roles in the operas The Taming of the Shrew by Vissarion Shebalin, The Three Fat Men by Veniamin Rubin, and Dawn by Kirill Molchanov. He also gave the first performances of such songs as Song of the Motherland and Song of Moscow by Serafim Tulikov, and Soldiers Are Marching by Kirill Molchanov. He worked extensively with composers Anatoly Novikov, Vasily Solovyov-Sedoy, Vano Muradeli, Serafim Tulikov, Arkady Ostrovsky, Tikhon Khrennikov, Aram Khachaturian, Georgy Sviridov, and Viktor Levashov.
He toured in nearly fifty countries around the world and received honorary orders and medals from those states. In the last years of his life he taught at the Gnessin Institute.
Rozum was named Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1967 and People's Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1978. He was also a laureate of six All-Russian and All-Union vocal competitions, including second prize at the All-Union competition for the best performance of works by Soviet composers in 1960.
He died in Moscow on January 24, 1987, and was buried at Kuntsevo Cemetery. His family included his wife Galina Rozhdestvenskaya, a professor at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music and choral conductor of the Academic Russian Song Choir of Russian Radio and Television, and his son Yuri Rozum, a pianist.
Connections
This figure has 1 connection in the Music Lineage catalog.