Oleg Boshnyakovich

Oleg Dragomirovich Boshnyakovich was a Russian pianist, concertmaster, and teacher, born on 9 May 1920 in Murom and died on 11 June 2006 in Moscow. He was awarded the title People's Artist of the Russian Federation in 1995. His mother, Larisa Nikolaevna Sazhina, worked all her life as an economist at the USSR State Planning Committee, while his father, Dragomir Petrovich Boshnyakovich, did not live with the family.

He received his first music lessons in childhood from his aunt A. N. Klevtsova. In 1934 he entered the Central Music School attached to the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied in the class of Tamara Bobovich. In 1942 he entered the Moscow Conservatory to study with Konstantin Igumnov, graduating in 1949 after delays caused by illness and evacuation during the Second World War. From 1949 to 1953 he pursued postgraduate study at the Gnessin State Musical Pedagogical Institute under Heinrich Neuhaus.

In 1953 Boshnyakovich began working at the Gnessin institute as a vocal class concertmaster. From 1954 he taught at the special piano department, becoming an associate professor in 1979 and a professor of the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music in 1993. Alongside his teaching, he was active in musical outreach and wrote a number of methodological manuals and essays about distinguished musicians of the past.

From 1958, as an artist of the All-Russian Touring and Concert Association, he began a concert career that continued almost until the end of his life. He became known internationally as a performer and gave solo recitals in the halls of the Moscow Conservatory and the Tchaikovsky Hall. The American newspaper The Baltimore Sun placed him among the greatest pianists of the previous half-century.

The Melodiya label issued 13 long-playing records of his performances of works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Mozart, Prokofiev, Granados, and Albéniz. His recordings were released in many countries. A ten-CD set titled The Art of Oleg Boshnyakovich was issued by Denon in Japan and received highly enthusiastic critical praise, becoming listed among bestsellers in Japanese classical music catalogues.

An important part of his artistic activity was his work with singers. He served as accompanist for Antonina Nezhdanova in the last years of her life, for Nadezhda Obukhova, with whom archival radio recordings survive, and for Zara Dolukhanova, whose artistic partnership with him became a significant milestone in his biography. He also collaborated with Dmitri Hvorostovsky, touring together in the United States and the United Kingdom and recording a compact disc of works by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff for Philips.

As a pedagogue he trained many musicians, including Boris Spassky and Maxim Trefan. Boshnyakovich died in Moscow in 2006 and was buried at Preobrazhenskoye Cemetery.