Dmitry Klebanov, born Dmitry Leibovich Klebanov, was a Ukrainian Soviet composer, conductor and music teacher. He was born on 25 July 1907 in Kharkiv. From the age of six he studied the violin, and from seven attended the Kharkiv Music School. In 1926 he graduated from the composition and theory faculty of the Kharkiv Music and Drama Institute, where he studied composition with Semyon Bogatyrev. He also took advanced conducting courses in Kharkiv with Grigory Adler.
From 1927 to 1928, Klebanov played viola in the orchestra of the S. M. Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre in Leningrad. He then worked as a conductor at the Merry Proletarian Theatre, the Musical Comedy Theatre and the Theatre of Revolution in Kharkiv from 1928 to 1931. Between 1931 and 1934, he conducted the Symphony Orchestra of the Ukrainian Radio Committee.
Beginning in 1934, he taught composition at the Kharkiv Conservatory. He became an associate professor in 1940 and a professor in 1960, and headed its Department of Composition and Orchestration from 1970 to 1973. His students included Myroslav Skoryk, Vitaly Hubarenko, Ihor Polsky, Valentin Ptushkin, Boris Yarovinsky, Volodymyr Zolotukhin, Valentyn Bibik and Viktor Suslin. During his evacuation in Tashkent from 1941 to 1943, he was an associate professor at Uzbekistan's Institute for the Advanced Training of Arts Workers.
Klebanov served on the board of the Kharkiv branch of the Union of Composers of the Ukrainian SSR from 1933 and chaired it in 1948–1949; he was also elected to the board of the Union of Composers of the Ukrainian SSR. After returning to Kharkiv in 1945, he wrote his First Symphony, In Memory of the Martyrs of Babi Yar, premiered in Kharkiv in 1947. The symphony was performed in Kyiv in 1990 by the Ukrainian State Orchestra under Ihor Blazhkov, and in 2024 in an edition by Oleksandr Shchetynsky. Klebanov chaired the jury of the Ukrainian Republican Competition for Violinists and Cellists in 1965 and served on the jury of the Third International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1966.
His output includes the operas The Storkling, One Life, Vasily Gubanov, Red Cossacks and May Day; the ballets The Storkling and Svetlana; nine symphonies; concertos for violin, cello and viola with orchestra; six string quartets, two trios and a quintet. He also wrote vocal cycles to texts by Heinrich Heine, Taras Shevchenko, Alexander Pushkin and ancient Japanese poets, as well as chamber ensembles, instrumental pieces, choruses, romances, songs, and music for theatre and film. His books include The Art of Orchestration and Mastery of Orchestration. His film scores include Exploit of a Scout, May Night, Flags on the Towers, The Plane Leaves at Nine and Bukovina: Ukrainian Land. He received the Order of the Badge of Honour in 1960 and was named Honored Artist of the Ukrainian SSR in 1967.
Klebanov died in Kharkiv on 5 June 1987.