Olga Alexandrova-Gnesina

Olga Fabianovna Alexandrova-Gnesina was a Russian and Soviet pianist and teacher, one of the Gnesin sisters, a family closely associated with Russian musical education. She was born on October 30, 1881, in Rostov-on-Don, into the family of Fabian Osipovich Gnesin, the official city rabbi, and Bella Isaevna Fleitzinger-Gnesina, née Shima-Bella Shaevna Fleitzinger, a singer and pupil of Stanisław Moniuszko. Her parents were married in Vilnius on July 15, 1863.

In 1901, she graduated from the Gnesin Sisters' Music School in the piano class of her sister Yelena Gnesina, becoming one of the institution's first graduates. In the same year, she began teaching piano there together with her elder sisters. She taught at Gnesin musical educational institutions for more than sixty years, almost until the end of her life: at the Children's Music School until 1955, at the Music College from 1932 to 1955, and at the Special Ten-Year School from 1946 to 1962, heading its piano department in 1946 and 1947. From 1944, for several years, she also taught a general piano class at the Gnesin State Musical Pedagogical Institute.

In 1932, she married Dmitry Konstantinovich Alexandrov, a chemist, professor at the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy, and major general of engineering troops. She was awarded the title Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1935 and Honored Worker of the Arts of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1945. She also received the Order of the Badge of Honor in 1945 and the Order of Lenin in 1954.

Olga Alexandrova-Gnesina died on March 9, 1963, and was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery, plot No. 2.