Isai Sherman (1908–1972) was a Soviet conductor, accompanist, and music educator. He was born in Kyiv and died in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg.
He graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1931, where his teachers included Nikolai Malko, Samuil Samosud, and Alexander Gauk. From 1930 he conducted at the Maly Opera Theater in Leningrad and took part in preparing A. P. Gladkovsky’s opera Front and Rear. In 1931 he staged The Fair at Sorochyntsi.
From 1934 to 1937 Sherman led the opera class at the Central Music Technical School in Leningrad, and from 1938 to 1950 he led the conducting class at the Leningrad Conservatory. In 1939 he conducted at the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theater, where he staged Alexander Krein’s ballet Laurencia that year and Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet in 1940. In 1940–1941 he was music director and chief conductor of the Leningrad Conservatory Opera Studio.
After returning to the Maly Opera Theater in 1945, he led an opera studio at a Leningrad cultural center in 1946. From 1951 he was chief conductor of the Opera and Ballet Theater in Kazan, where he participated in productions of N. G. Zhiganov’s operas Honor (1953) and The Road to Victory (1954). From 1956 he was chief conductor of the Opera and Ballet Theater in Gorky, now Nizhny Novgorod.
In 1958 Sherman was chief music director and conductor of the Decade of Karelian Art in Moscow. From April 1959 he was chief conductor of the Musical Drama Theater in Petrozavodsk, conducting the ballet Sampo by G. Sinisalo and the opera Kumokha by R. Pergament, both in 1959. From 1960 he was chief conductor of the Tatar Opera and Ballet Theater.
From 1938 to 1972 Sherman taught at the conservatories in Leningrad, Kazan, and Gorky. He became a professor in 1963; his students included Yu. Gamaley, Berg, O. Lundstrem, A. Monasypov, and M. Ermler. He was named Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1940 and People's Artist of the Karelian ASSR in 1959. He was buried at Serafimovskoe Cemetery in Leningrad.
Organizations
- Saint Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory
- Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre named after A. S. Pushkin
- Nizhny Novgorod State Conservatory
- Mariinsky Theatre
- Kazan Conservatory
- Mikhailovsky Theatre
- Mussorgsky Saint Petersburg Music College
- Musa Jalil Tatar Academic State Opera and Ballet Theatre
- Musical Theatre of the Republic of Karelia