Elizaveta Gnesina-Vitachek

Elizaveta Fabianovna Gnesina-Vitachek (11/23 December 1876 - 29 April 1953) was a violinist, teacher, and one of the Gnesin sisters. She was born in Rostov-on-Don in the family of the city state rabbi Fabian Osipovich Gnesin, also known as Faivish Ioselevich Gnesin. Her mother, Bella Isaevna Fleitzinger-Gnesina, née Shima-Bella Shaevna Fleitzinger, was a singer, a pupil of Stanisław Moniuszko, and a native of Vilnius. Her parents were married in Vilnius on 15 July 1863.

In 1901 she graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, where she studied violin with Jan Hřímalý. In the same year she began teaching violin at the E. and M. Gnesin Music School founded by her sisters. At the music school and the Gnesin children's school, Gnesina-Vitachek also taught theory and solfeggio. Later she taught ensemble performance and directed the orchestra. For more than forty years she headed the string department of the school, organizing its work and creating new disciplines.

After the founding of the Gnesin Institute in 1944, she served as acting professor of the string instruments department. There she taught violin, teaching methodology, and pedagogical practice until 1952. From 1946 she also taught at the Gnesin Special Ten-Year School, and from 1946 to 1949 she was head of the school's orchestral department.

She received the title Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1935 and Honored Art Worker of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on 14 February 1945. On the same date she was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor.

Her first husband, from 1901 until no later than 1907, was the violinist Alexander Alexandrovich Vivien. Their son, Shurik Vivien, lived from 1903 to 1911. Her second husband, from 1909 to 1936, was the violin maker Yevgeny Frantsevich Vitachek. Their son was the composer Fabius Yevgenyevich Vitachek.

Elizaveta Gnesina-Vitachek died on 29 April 1953. She was buried in Moscow at Novodevichy Cemetery, plot 2.