Orest Yevlakhov
Orest Yevlakhov was a Soviet composer and music educator, born in Warsaw on January 17, 1912. He became a prominent composition teacher in the Leningrad school of composition and received the title Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1972.
He graduated from the First Musical Technical School in Leningrad in 1936, studying composition with M. A. Yudin. In 1941 he completed composition and orchestration studies at the Leningrad Conservatory with Dmitri Shostakovich. His Piano Concerto was first performed in Leningrad that year, with Moisey Khalfin as soloist.
Yevlakhov taught at the Leningrad Conservatory from 1947 and became a professor in 1959. He chaired its composition department during 1960–1969 and 1971–1973. His students included Valery Gavrilin, Andrei Petrov, Sergei Slonimsky, and Boris Tishchenko. He wrote the book Problems of Educating a Composer (1963), as well as methodological works, articles, and reviews for newspapers and the journal Soviet Music.
His varied output was led by large-scale instrumental works. It included three symphonies, a Piano Concerto, a Violin Concerto-Poem, a piano sonata, chamber works, and ballets including Willow and Bronze Saga. He also wrote the vocal-symphonic cycle Leningrad, music for theater and film, and works for choir and voice. Yevlakhov died in Leningrad on December 15, 1973.