Alexei Rybnikov
Alexei Rybnikov is a Soviet and Russian composer and producer, born on 17 July 1945 in Moscow. He grew up in a creative family: his mother, Alexandra Rybnikova, was a designer, and his father, Lev Beimshlag, played violin in Alexander Tsfasman's orchestra. Rybnikov began composing as a child, writing several piano pieces at the age of eight and the ballet Puss in Boots at eleven.
From 1956 to 1962 he studied at the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory. He then entered the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied composition with Aram Khachaturian. His official compositional debut was the piano sonata Khorovody (Round Dances), written during his first year. He graduated from the conservatory with distinction in 1967 and completed postgraduate study under Khachaturian in 1969. From 1969 to 1975, he taught composition at the Moscow Conservatory.
Rybnikov wrote orchestral, choral, chamber and stage music, including six symphonies, concertos for violin, piano, bayan and string quartet, and works such as the Russian Overture, the concert capriccio Skomorokh, and the choral concerto of 2012. His early large-scale works include the Violin Concerto, Symphony No. 1, the ballet Puss in Boots, and the piano sonata Khorovody.
He is also a prolific composer for film, television and animation. His screen scores include music for Treasure Island, The Adventures of Pinocchio, About Little Red Riding Hood, The Very Same Munchhausen, Through Hardships to the Stars, The Star, Wolfhound of the Grey Dog Clan, Andersen: A Life Without Love, and Lord of the Wind. From 1974 onward, he composed the main theme for the newsreel Yeralash. By 1989, sales of recordings featuring his music had exceeded ten million copies.
Rybnikov's best-known stage works are the rock operas The Star and Death of Joaquin Murrieta (1975) and Juno and Avos (1979), the latter based on a poem by Andrei Voznesensky. Both were staged at the Moscow Lenin Komsomol Theatre. The Star and Death of Joaquin Murrieta was adapted as a feature film in 1982; its music also appeared on an album, making it the first Russian musical realized as a recording, a stage production and a film. In 2010–2011 he wrote a contemporary opera based on Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, for which he also prepared the libretto.
In 1987 he founded the Creative Production Association Contemporary Opera at the USSR Composers' Union. Its production of his musical mystery The Liturgy of the Catechumens was presented in 1992 and toured the United States in late 1994 and early 1995. In 1999, the Alexei Rybnikov Theatre was established under the Moscow Culture Committee. His later theatrical works include Maestro Massimo, premiered in excerpts in 2000, and the opera-drama Le Prince André: Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, premiered at the Et Cetera Theatre in 2021.
Rybnikov served as chairman of the Council of the Russian Composers' Union from 2017 to 2022 and subsequently became a council member. Since 2021 he has been artistic director of the Dobryninskaya Performing Arts Center in Moscow. His honors include the title People's Artist of the Russian Federation (1999), the State Prize of the Russian Federation for the film The Star (2003), and the Presidential Prize of the Russian Federation for literature and the arts for children and young people (2018). He has also received Nika, Golden Eagle and Kinotavr awards for cinema, among other distinctions. He lives and works in Moscow.