Galina Rozhdestvenskaya

Galina Rozhdestvenskaya was a Soviet and Russian musician and conductor. She was born on June 29, 1925, in Tula, and died on May 19, 2001, in Moscow. She was honored as a Merited Artist of the RSFSR in 1968 and was named People's Artist of the Russian Federation in 1995.

She graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she studied with Klavdiy Ptitsa, Vladislav Sokolov, and Aleksandr Sveshnikov. Rozhdestvenskaya went on to build a long career in choral conducting and music education.

For 50 years she was a leading teacher of conducting at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music. Alongside her teaching work, she served as conductor and choirmaster of the Academic Russian Song Choir of Soviet and Russian Radio and Television. She was also a professor at the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music.

Among her students at various times were Lyudmila Zykina, Valentina Gotovtseva, Yekaterina Semyonkina, Alla Lapteva, and Valentina Fomenko. Future conductors and choirmasters also studied with her, including Yuri Ukhov, later chief choirmaster and conductor of the Alexandrov Red Army Song and Dance Ensemble; Sergey Balaban, artistic director of the folklore theater Slavic Sunrise in Chelyabinsk; Yuri Sigalov, artistic director of a folklore ensemble in San Francisco; and Maria Manko, leader and choirmaster of the Virtuosos ensemble in Stockholm.

Lyudmila Zykina spoke of Rozhdestvenskaya in an interview as her first teacher, describing her as a talented choirmaster, conductor, and pedagogue of the Academic Russian Song Choir who trained a whole generation of singers known in their country and beyond. Zykina also recalled performing with the choir, whose permanent choirmaster was Galina Rozhdestvenskaya, as a source of genuine creative excitement and joy in participating in true and elevated art.

Rozhdestvenskaya was the author of the textbook Russian Folk Choir. A Guide for Leaders of Amateur Russian Folk Choirs, published in 1965. For her achievements in musical art and her many years of work in the Academic Russian Song Choir of the Ostankino Russian State Television and Radio Company, she received the honorary title People's Artist of the Russian Federation.

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