Alexander Sveshnikov
Alexander Sveshnikov was a Russian and Soviet choral conductor and teacher. He was born in Kolomna on September 11, 1889, and died in Moscow on January 3, 1980.
He studied music theory with Boleslav Yavorsky and singing with Sergei Vlasov at the Moscow People's Conservatory, graduating in 1909. In 1913 he completed his studies at the Music and Drama School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, where his teachers included Alexander Koreschenko and Vasily Kalinnikov. From 1909, he worked as a choirmaster and taught choral singing in Moscow schools.
After leading choirs in Moscow and Poltava, Sveshnikov directed the vocal ensemble of the USSR Radio Committee from 1928 to 1936. He founded the State Choir of the USSR in 1936 and led the Leningrad State Academic Chapel from 1937 to 1941. In 1941 he founded the State Russian Folk Choir, which he led until his death. With the choir, he toured cities across the Soviet Union and performed abroad, including in Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and Japan.
In 1944, Sveshnikov helped establish the Moscow Choral School and served as its artistic director. From that year he also taught at the Moscow Conservatory, where he became a professor in 1946, led the conducting and choral faculty from 1944 to 1948, and served as rector from 1948 to 1974. He organized and chaired the All-Russian Choral Society from 1957 to 1964 and served on the vocal jury of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1966, 1970, and 1974.
Sveshnikov made choral arrangements of Russian folk songs and other songs, many of which remain widely performed. The repertoire he led ranged from works by Russian composers including Berezovsky, Bortnyansky, Glinka, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Sviridov to music by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, and Britten. His 1965 recording of Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil is among his best-known musical achievements. He also wrote the 1962 essay Choral Singing Is a Truly Popular Art and articles on music.
His honors included the titles People's Artist of the RSFSR and People's Artist of the USSR, the second-degree Stalin Prize in 1946 for his concert performances, and the Glinka State Prize of the RSFSR in 1967 for the choir's concert programs.