Konstantin Ivanov (1907–1984) was a Soviet conductor, composer, and memoirist. He was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1958. Born in Yefremov, then in Tula Governorate of the Russian Empire, he was the son of a maker of musical instruments.
After his father's death in 1920, Ivanov was taken in by a Red Army regiment. He learned to play the trumpet and served for several years in military cavalry bands, including as a bugler-trumpeter in the First Cavalry Army. He also wrote marching tunes.
From 1924 he served in Tiflis and studied at the conservatory. In 1927 he entered the Fifth State Music Technical School named after Alexander Scriabin, studying composition with Alexander Alexandrov and orchestration with Sergei Vasilenko. He later attended military bandmaster courses at the Moscow Conservatory, transferred to its conducting faculty, and graduated in 1937 after studying symphonic conducting with Konstantin Saradzhev and Lev Ginzburg.
Ivanov conducted the orchestra of the Central Theatre of the Red Army from 1935 to 1937, then served as assistant conductor at the Opera Studio of the Moscow Conservatory. After winning third prize at the All-Union Conductors' Competition in 1938, he became a trainee with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra. He subsequently worked at Konstantin Stanislavsky's Opera Studio-Theatre and the Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre, and from 1941 to 1946 was with the Grand Symphony Orchestra of the All-Union Radio Committee.
From 1946 until 1965, Ivanov was chief conductor of the USSR State Academic Symphony Orchestra. His repertoire included Mozart's Requiem; symphonies by Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, and Dvořák; Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique; and Rachmaninoff's The Bells. Under his leadership, the orchestra expanded its touring activity across the Soviet Union and made its first foreign tour, to Poland, in 1956. He led it on tours in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Belgium, the United States, and Japan, and also appeared with foreign orchestras in Portugal, France, Mexico, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.
Russian classical composers, especially Tchaikovsky, were central to Ivanov's repertoire; he also conducted works by Glinka, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, and Lyadov. He performed music by Myaskovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Peiko, Khachaturian, and Giya Kancheli. His own compositions include the symphonic poem The Years of Fire, the Cosmic Symphony, the symphony-cantata Praise Youth on verses by Vladimir Mayakovsky, a concerto for double bass and orchestra, and vocal works.
Ivanov completed the composition department of the Gnesins State Music and Pedagogical Institute between 1970 and 1973, studying with Nikolai Peiko, and was a member of the USSR Composers' Union. He wrote the book The Magic of Music and the article “By the October Voucher.” His awards included third prize at the 1938 All-Union Conductors' Competition, the Stalin Prize in 1949, and the titles Honoured Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, People's Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and People's Artist of the USSR. He died in Moscow in 1984 and was buried at Kuntsevo Cemetery.