Kirill Yevgenyevich Volkov (born 3 December 1943) is a Soviet and Russian composer and music educator. He was born in Moscow and studied composition with Aram Khachaturian at the Moscow Conservatory, graduating in 1967. He completed postgraduate studies under Khachaturian in 1969.
From 1967, Volkov worked as an editor in the music-theatre and symphonic-music department of the Soviet Composer publishing house. In 1979 he became secretary of the board of the Composers' Union of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. He is a professor at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music and a full member of the Peter the Great Academy of Sciences and Arts.
His compositions include two symphonies: a 1969 work for mezzo-soprano and orchestra using Russian folk texts, and the 1971 Symphony in Memory of Nikolai Myaskovsky. He also wrote a 1965 sinfonietta for orchestra and two bayan accordions; the unaccompanied mixed-choir cantatas The Word, using lines from The Tale of Igor's Campaign, and My Quiet Homeland, to poems by Nikolai Rubtsov; the operas A Peasant Tale and Live and Remember; and the ballet Doctor Zhivago.
Other works include the concert pictures Andrei Rublev for symphony orchestra and solo wind quintet, the Vladimir Triptych for chamber ensemble, an Orchestra Concerto written for the anniversary of Halle, George Frideric Handel's birthplace, a concerto for harp quartet, flute, oboe and strings, a concerto for bayan and symphony orchestra, and a double concerto for mezzo-soprano, cello and orchestra. He has composed music for more than 80 documentary and feature films, including The Gift of the Black Sorcerer, Humiliated and Insulted, Matveyeva's Joy, On the 206th, The Enchanted Wanderer, Thunderstorm over Rus', I Myself Am a Native of Vyatka, Russian Romance, Black Shark and The Return of Mukhtar.
As a teacher, Volkov mentored Jorge López Marín, Olga Harris, Li Zhaoxi, Ping Chunyang, Cao Guangyu, Hwang Sara, Yulia Perevyortova, Natalia Chebotaryova, Zory Fain, Grigory Zaitsev, Alexei Vershinin, Natalia Khondo, Murat Tuarshev, Georgy Fyodorov and Alexei Menkov. His honours include the title Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1984, the Mikhail Glinka State Prize of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1987 for the opera Live and Remember and the cantatas My Quiet Homeland and The Word, the Magician of Dance prize in 1996 for Doctor Zhivago, and the title People's Artist of the Russian Federation in 2013.