Mikhail Georgievich Kollontay, also known by his mother's surname as Yermolayev, is a Russian composer and pianist, born on 21 August 1952 in Moscow. His father, Georgy Fyodorovich Kollontay, was a painter who was repressed in 1938, released in 1946, and rehabilitated posthumously; his mother, Ekaterina Ilyinichna Yermolayeva, was a translator from English and Modern Greek.
He studied at the music school attached to the Moscow Conservatory, graduating in 1971 from both the piano and theoretical-composition departments. He then completed the piano faculty of the Moscow Conservatory in 1977 in the class of Professor Vera Gornostayeva, also continuing there in assistantship-internship, and in 1978 graduated from the theoretical-composition faculty in the composition class of Professor Aleksandr Lehman. Since 1979 he has been a member of the Union of Composers of the USSR and later Russia.
From 1979 to 2003 Kollontay taught at the Moscow Conservatory, with interruptions, first as an assistant to Vera Gornostayeva and from 1982 independently. From 1989 to 1991 he also taught special piano at the Gnesins State Musical Pedagogical Institute. From 2003 to 2024 he was professor of piano at Tainan National University of the Arts in Taiwan. Beginning in 1991, he also fulfilled various obediences in Moscow churches, including altar server, singer, and watchman.
As a composer, Kollontay developed an individual style under the influence of Russian church music, the tradition of liturgical reading, Old Russian singing culture, and folklore. The article notes that these influences were rooted in his childhood singing on the church kliros and in his work with the Folk Music Cabinet of the Moscow Conservatory, including folklore expeditions. His music was performed by many notable soloists and ensembles, and the Mariinsky Theatre gave the premiere concert performance of his opera The Captain's Daughter.
His catalogue includes symphonies, piano concertos, a violin concerto, chamber works, sacred vocal compositions, organ music, and large-scale choral-orchestral scores. Among the works listed are Symphony No. 7, Symphony No. 6, Symphony No. 5, Symphony No. 4, the Violin Concerto Blue Ray, the oratorio House of the Lord, the Russian military requiem Let This Cup Pass from Us, the opera The Captain's Daughter, the Viola Concerto, Eight Spiritual Symphonies, and Village Choruses. He also prepared an edition and orchestration of Dargomyzhsky's opera The Stone Guest.
As a pianist, Kollontay has performed a broad repertoire including both books of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, late Haydn sonatas, Mozart sonatas, Beethoven works including Op. 106, music by Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Dargomyzhsky, Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Komitas, Yuri Butsko, Boris Tchaikovsky, and others. He has appeared in solo programs in Russia and abroad, and also performed as a concertmaster and chamber ensemble musician. The article also states that he conducts performances of his own compositions.
In musical public activity, from 1989 to 1993 he created and headed the Commission on Creative Heritage under the Moscow Union of Composers, devoted to preserving the archives of Moscow composers. He was also the initiator and head of the organizing committee of the musical gatherings Nasledie in 1990, prepared extensive radio broadcasts devoted to Glinka, Dargomyzhsky, Taneyev, Enescu, Gilels, Balakirev and others, and served as editor-compiler and commentator for a 1987 edition of Glinka's piano works published under the pseudonym E. Nosenko.
Among his distinctions named in the article are a diploma for best concertmaster at the All-Union Glinka Vocalists Competition in Tallinn in 1979, first prize at the All-Union Pianists Competition in Tashkent in 1981, the Dmitri Shostakovich Prize in 1981 for the Viola Concerto, and a diploma and special prize for Tchaikovsky performance at the 7th International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 1982.
Connections
This figure has 1 connection in the Music Lineage catalog.