Sergey Kaidan-Deshkin
Sergey Kaidan-Deshkin, born Sergey Fyodorovich Deshkin, was a Soviet composer and concertmaster. He was born on 23 June 1901 in Vilnius, the son of a railway-administration official. As a child, he took part in the Scout movement. After completing seven school years, he entered Moscow State University.
In 1922 he wrote his first work, the pioneer march “Let the Bonfires Blaze,” to words by the poet Alexander Zharov; it became the pioneer anthem. From 1927 to 1930 he studied composition with Mikhail Gnesin and piano with Elena Gnesina at the Gnesin Music College in Moscow. After marrying, he added his wife’s surname, Kaidan, to his own.
From 1926 to 1930 Kaidan-Deshkin wrote music for a Moscow puppet theatre and other children’s theatres. Between 1930 and 1940 he led club orchestras in the Urals, Altai and the Far North. He was musical director and composer at the Igarka Theatre from 1941 to 1943, taught music at the Pedagogical College for the Peoples of the North, and served as musical director of the Norilsk Drama Theatre in 1943–44. From 1944 to 1949 he was musical director and composer at the Krasnoyarsk Drama Theatre and taught at the Krasnoyarsk Music College.
After arriving in Kyzyl in 1949, he studied Tuvan folklore and wrote music for the national epic “Sixty Heroes” and for the opera “Sain.” He also composed the “March of the Tuvan Komsomol” for choir and orchestra, organized a music lecture series, directed music at the Tuvan Drama Theatre, and taught at the National Pedagogical College from 1949 to 1956. He later taught at a music school in Kuzbass from 1956 to 1959. In 1959 he moved to Velikiye Luki, where he was musical director of the Velikiye Luki Drama Theatre and ballet concertmaster until 1962. By then he had written music for 58 productions. His works also include “Legend of Mountain Shoria” for wind orchestra, six marches, 24 Preludes for piano, “Intimate Waltz,” romances on poems by Russian poets, and music for productions of Shakespeare’s “Othello” and “The Taming of the Shrew,” Eugène Scribe’s “A Glass of Water,” and the national drama “Sain.” He died in Velikiye Luki on 3 November 1972.