Igor Yakushenko
Igor Vasilyevich Yakushenko (15 April 1932 – 8 March 1999) was a Soviet and Russian composer, pianist, and music teacher. He was born and died in Moscow. In 1982 he was named Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
Yakushenko spent his childhood in Moscow, where Yevgeny Svetlanov and Igor Volchok grew up nearby. He graduated in 1956 from the Gnesins State Music Pedagogical Institute, having studied composition with Aram Khachaturian.
He taught an elective composition class at the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory from 1958 to 1962, then taught at the Gnesins Music School from 1963 to 1978. From 1975 he also performed as a pianist and led a jazz instrumental ensemble.
His concert works included the ballet Students (1960), the symphony Russian Songs (1959), a Piano Concerto, a Violin Concerto, and the vocal cycle Do You Hear, Sky? to words by Leonid Derbenyov (1965).
Yakushenko wrote music for feature films including The Green Van (1959, with Boris Karamyshev), Welcome, or No Trespassing (1964, with Mikael Tariverdiev), Lenin in Switzerland (1965), and Ugly Elsa (1981). His animated-film scores included Who Is to Blame, The Rooster and the Paints, Automaton, Vovka in the Faraway Kingdom, Russian Tunes, The Case of... A Not Very Comic Opera, and The Little Hare and the Fly.
He also wrote many popular lyrical and youth-oriented songs, as well as virtuosic jazz-style instrumental pieces. His songs included Hello, Children; The Old Gramophone; And Love Was Nearby; I See You; Near the House; It Seems; and Twilight. I See You and Near the House were first performed by the vocal-instrumental ensemble Leysya, Pesnya in 1977 and 1978 respectively, while It Seems and Twilight were performed by Anna German.
Yakushenko was buried at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow.