Alexandra Rozanova-Nechaeva was a Russian and Soviet pianist and teacher. She was born Alexandra Alexandrovna Rozanova on November 20, 1876, in Dresden, where she lived until 1888. Her father, Alexander Rozanov, was an archpriest at the Dresden embassy church of the Imperial Russian Mission. He and her mother, Antonina, had seven children, two of whom died in early childhood.
Rozanova-Nechaeva received her first musical training from Professor E. Schumann. From 1888 to 1894, she attended the St. Catherine’s School in St. Petersburg, studying piano with Natalia Poznyakovskaya, with the involvement of Mily Balakirev, the school’s inspector. She graduated with an award and a certificate qualifying her as a home teacher. In 1894, she entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where she studied piano with Alvina Sokolovskaya and music theory with Ignati Voyachek. She completed her piano studies in 1899 in the class of Sofia Malozyomova. She also studied in Paris with Paul Vidal and Benjamin Selva and in Berlin with Robert Buehlig. In 1899, she won first prize at the V. A. Erakova Piano Competition.
She performed as a soloist and in ensembles at concerts and chamber music gatherings organized by the Imperial Russian Musical Society, the Society of Friends of Chamber Music, and the Pavlovsk Musical Station. Her ensemble partners included Alexander Verzhbilovich, and she also toured abroad. From 1898 to 1919, she led music courses that she had organized at V. A. Subbotina’s gymnasium. In 1922, she and Natalia Poznyakovskaya compiled a catalog of piano ensemble literature; in 1924, she traveled to Germany to study new piano-playing methods and the teaching of piano ensemble classes.
Rozanova-Nechaeva taught at the St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1899, progressing from assistant to lecturer, senior lecturer, second-degree professor, and, in 1923, professor. She was also an associate professor from 1926 to 1928. She considered herself a follower of Anton Rubinstein’s school and kept abreast of new developments in piano performance. She trained about 40 graduates, including Natalia Golubovskaya, Vera Slonimskaya, Eduard Ryllo, Maria Gelever, Ilya Guterman, Klavdia Morozova, Klavdia Selikhovich, and Vladimir Freiman. Dmitri Shostakovich studied in her piano class in 1919.
She died in Leningrad on January 9, 1942, and was buried in a mass grave at Serafimovskoye Cemetery. A cenotaph was placed at the grave of her husband, Alexei Nechaev, at Theological Cemetery.