Alexei Alexandrovich Nikolayev was a Soviet and Russian composer, born in Moscow on April 24, 1931, into a family of musicians. He graduated from the art history department of Moscow State University's Faculty of History in 1953, then studied composition at the Moscow Conservatory with Vissarion Shebalin, graduating in 1956. In 1959, he completed postgraduate studies with Shebalin and defended a thesis on the work of Seghers.
From 1958, Nikolayev taught composition at the Moscow Conservatory, where he became a professor. His works include the operas Grief Is No Trouble, At the Cost of Life and The Defeat; the ballets The Golden Key and Moon-Eyed Girl; and five symphonies composed between 1960 and 1972. He also wrote operettas, oratorios, chamber and piano works, vocal cycles, choral music, and scores for dramatic productions, films, radio and television.
Nikolayev was named Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1973 and People's Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1985. His awards included the Mikhail Glinka State Prize of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic for his Fifth Symphony and seven choruses on poems by Alexander Tvardovsky (1980), a prize at the Sergei Prokofiev International Competition for a concerto for two pianos and orchestra (1997), and the Dmitri Shostakovich Prize of the Union of Composers of Russia (2001). His father, Alexander Nikolayev, was a pianist, teacher and musicologist.
Nikolayev died in Moscow on December 28, 2003, and was buried at Vvedenskoye Cemetery.