Boris Gibalin
Boris Gibalin (1911–1982) was a Soviet composer and professor at the Ural Mussorgsky Conservatory. He was born in Nyazepetrovsk on April 24, 1911.
As a young man, he accompanied silent films and performed with workers’ agitprop groups. From 1928 to 1932 he worked as an accompanist in Zlatoust, then became a music editor at Ural Radio. He studied composition at the Sverdlovsk Music College with Vladimir Zolotaryov and graduated from the Ural State Conservatory in 1939, earning distinction as the first graduate of its composition department. His graduation work was his First Symphony. He also pursued postgraduate studies at the Moscow Conservatory with Nikolai Myaskovsky and completed them at the Ural Conservatory with Mikhail Frolov.
Gibalin taught composition at the Ural Conservatory until 1948. He was artistic director of the Sverdlovsk Philharmonic from 1948 to 1959 and of the Ural Folk Choir from 1959 to 1962. From 1963 to 1975 he served as rector of the Ural State Mussorgsky Conservatory; in 1971 he became a professor of composition. He contributed to the training of Buryat and Mongolian composers.
Gibalin wrote more than 70 works in symphonic, vocal and choral, and instrumental genres. His operas included Comrade Andrei, Fyodor Protasov, The Testament, and Do Not Let the Fire Die, Prometheus!; he also wrote operas for children, including The Fisherman and the Fish, The Turnip, and The Bun. His other works included the cantatas Thoughts of the Homeland and Spring, the choral cycles Four Seasons and Fables, three symphonies, and two string quartets. He was named Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1956 and of the Buryat ASSR in 1971. He died in Sverdlovsk on May 5, 1982.