Ilya Musin (24 December 1903 [6 January 1904] – 6 June 1999) was a Soviet conductor, music educator, and theorist of conducting. Born in Kostroma in the Russian Empire, he later became one of the most influential teachers of orchestral conducting. He was named Honored Artist of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1939, Honored Artist of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, and People's Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1983. He was also an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Musin entered the Petrograd Conservatory in 1919, initially studying piano with Nikolai Dubasov and Samuel Savshinsky. From 1925 he studied conducting under Nikolai Malko and Alexander Gauk. In 1934 he became Fritz Stiedry's assistant with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. He was later transferred to Minsk to lead the State Symphony Orchestra of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Although his conducting career was not especially successful, a notable event was his performance of Dmitri Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony in Tashkent on 22 June 1942, while he was in evacuation there. It was the symphony's second performance, following its premiere in Kuibyshev under Samuil Samosud.
Musin's principal legacy was as a teacher. He began teaching at the Leningrad Conservatory in 1932 and continued his pedagogical work for six decades. He developed a detailed system of conducting, describing it as a science in which a conductor must express the music through gesture while uniting figurative and expressive elements with ensemble and technical ones. His approach was set out in his major 1967 book, The Technique of Conducting, and was passed on through generations of his pupils.
His students included Yuri Temirkanov, Yalchin Adigezalov, Semyon Bychkov, Valery Gergiev, Arnold Katz, Juozas Domarkas, Teodor Currentzis, Tugan Sokhiev, Vasily Sinaisky, Rudolf Barshai, and many other conductors. Musin also wrote On the Education of a Conductor: Essays (1987), Lessons of Life: Memoirs of a Conductor (1995), and The Language of the Conductor's Gesture, later translated into English.
Musin died in St. Petersburg and was buried at the Literatorskie Mostki section of Volkovo Cemetery. A monument to him, designed by Lev Smorgon, was installed with the support of the Mariinsky Theatre.