Mikhail Petukhov was a Soviet and Russian pianist and composer, born in Varna, Bulgaria, on April 24, 1954. After his family moved to Ukraine, he studied piano with Valeria Vyazovskaya, a pianist and composer, and began performing in concerts at the age of ten, often including his own works.
Composer Boris Lyatoshinsky helped shape Petukhov’s professional path by recommending him to the rector of the Kyiv Conservatory. Petukhov entered the Lysenko Special Music School without an entrance examination, studying piano with Nina Naidich and composition and music theory with Valentin Kucherov. He won a bronze medal at the 1972 International Bach Piano Competition in Leipzig and made his compositional debut that year at the Kyiv Composers’ Union. He later studied with Tatyana Nikolayeva at the Moscow State Conservatory.
While a student, Petukhov wrote several major works, including the opera The Bride of Messina, based on Friedrich Schiller’s text and with a libretto by Petukhov, and a Sonata for Solo Violin that received praise from David Oistrakh and other violinists. In 1975 he won a bronze medal at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels. That December, he took part with Nikolayeva and two of her other students in the first performance in the Soviet Union of all 12 of Bach’s keyboard concertos.
Petukhov’s repertoire ranges from Baroque music to contemporary works, including his own, and includes more than 50 piano concertos. He has given at least 3,000 concerts and made numerous radio and television recordings in several countries, as well as recordings for labels in Russia and abroad. He is a professor at the Moscow Conservatory and teaches in its special piano department; his students include Dmitry Masleev. His compositions span opera, orchestral, chamber, vocal, and choral music, including the Sevastopol Symphony, Romantic Elegy: A Dedication to St Petersburg, Tales of Ise, a String Quartet, and five Spiritual Concertos.