Andrey Kadlets
Andrey Kadlets was a Russian composer and conductor, born on February 18, 1859, in Dobříš, Czechia. He studied at the Prague Conservatory with Antonín Bennewitz and at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Leopold Auer.
From 1887 to 1907, he played viola in the Mariinsky Theatre orchestra. From 1910 to 1917, he served as the orchestra’s concertmaster and conductor. He also worked as a bandmaster for the Life Guards Finnish Regiment.
Kadlets wrote the opera The Village Diplomat, instrumental pieces, and the ballets Acis and Galatea, The Water Lily, and The Fair. Acis and Galatea was staged at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1896 by choreographer Lev Ivanov. In 1907, Mikhail Fokine staged it as an examination performance at the St. Petersburg Theatre School; it was Fokine’s first production. With A. Kleynike, Kadlets orchestrated Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons for Fokine’s ballet of the same name in 1909. In the early 1910s, he composed music for a new national anthem of Mongolia.
From 1923, Kadlets lived in Samara, where he taught at a local technical school and conducted symphony and wind orchestras. He died there on February 6, 1928.