Anatoly Badkhen was a Soviet conductor, born in Odessa on March 14, 1922. His father, Semyon Badkhen, played double bass in the Odessa Opera Theater orchestra. The family moved to Petrograd in 1922, where his father worked at the Maly Opera Theater.
Badkhen began studying music at home and entered the school attached to the Leningrad Conservatory in 1936, where he studied trumpet. After illness forced him to stop in 1938, he continued at the conservatory’s music school in the conducting and choral department. From 1939, he also worked in variety orchestras, including Yakov Skomorovsky’s jazz orchestra.
In 1942, Badkhen began working with the State Jazz Orchestra of the Kyrgyz SSR, led by Skomorovsky. He received his first appointment at the Novosibirsk Musical Comedy Theater in 1944, initially combining instrumental work with conducting. From October that year he served as a full-time conductor. In 1945, the theater’s company moved to Prokopyevsk and formed the basis of the State Kemerovo Regional Musical Comedy Theater.
After returning to Leningrad in 1946, Badkhen worked as a conductor and later chief conductor of the Republican Musical Comedy Theater of the Karelo-Finnish SSR and the Leningrad Regional Operetta Theater. In 1948, he entered the conducting department of the Leningrad Conservatory, studying with Alexander Gauk and later Sergei Yeltsin. Illness interrupted his studies, and he received his conservatory diploma in 1968 after completing the required examinations.
Badkhen conducted for the Leningrad Radio Committee and, from 1952 to 1959, led the orchestra at the Plastmass recording studio, where it made more than 700 records. From 1959 to 1969, he was chief conductor of the Leningrad Theater of Variety, whose performances featured Arkady Raikin. Between 1951 and 1957, he also took part in creating variety shows, including Spring at LETI and This Is How We Take Our Rest.
In 1969, Badkhen founded the Leningrad Small Symphony Orchestra, also known as the Leningrad Concert Orchestra, which later became the State Symphony Orchestra of St. Petersburg. The orchestra recorded 15 long-playing records of vocal and instrumental music and performed programs devoted to composers including Michel Legrand, Tikhon Khrennikov, Yevgeny Dogа, Andrey Petrov, and Veniamin Basner. Badkhen mentored singer Lyudmila Senchina, who became a soloist with the orchestra in 1975 and worked with it for more than ten years.
Badkhen wrote about 130 programs for Leningrad radio and television from 1949 onward. He also co-wrote the musical suite-fantasy for the television film Let the Song Flow! and contributed to scripts for the films Nevsky Melodies, In All Seasons, and When the Song Does Not End.
He was named Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1979 and received the Glinka State Prize of the RSFSR in 1984 for concert programs presented from 1980 to 1983. His other honors included the Leningrad Komsomol Prize in 1972 and an honorary diploma from the 12th World Festival of Youth and Students in 1985. Badkhen died in Leningrad on October 1, 1989.
Organizations
- Saint Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory
- Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg Music College
- Secondary Special Music School of the Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg Conservatory
- Novosibirsk Musical Theatre
- St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra
- Arkady Raikin Variety Theatre
- Musical Theatre of the Republic of Karelia