Tatyana Chudova

Tatyana Chudova was a Soviet and Russian composer, music pedagogue, and professor of composition at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. She was born on 16 June 1944 in Moscow into a family of musicians and died on 23 November 2021 in Moscow. In 2007 she was named Honored Artist of the Russian Federation.

She grew up in a strongly musical family: her father was a violinist and composer, her grandfather also graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, her great-grandmother was a singer, and her mother graduated from the Gnessin Musical Institute in the domra class and at one time directed an orchestra of Russian folk instruments.

In 1948 she entered the Central Music School, where she studied both composition and piano, graduating in 1963. Her teachers there included E. P. Khoven, T. D. Manuilskaya, and I. A. Dashkova in piano; L. N. Naumov in composition; and L. M. Kaluzhsky in theory and harmony.

In 1968 she graduated from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory in composition, initially studying with Yuri Shaporin and, after his death in 1966, continuing with Tikhon Khrennikov. At the same time she studied orchestration with Edison Denisov and Yu. A. Fortunatov, polyphony with V. N. Rukavishnikov, and theory, harmony, and musical form with Yu. N. Kholopov. In 1969 she entered postgraduate assistant training under Khrennikov and joined the Union of Soviet Composers.

Her graduation work at the conservatory was the opera-ballet The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights. Her postgraduate works included the suite From Russian Fairy Tales and a piano concerto in three movements. After completing her postgraduate studies in 1970, she began her teaching career.

Chudova taught at the Moscow Conservatory, where she led courses in reading symphonic scores, orchestration, and composition. She became an associate professor in 1988 and a professor in 1995. She also taught at the Central Music School from 1975, at the Schnittke Musical College and Moscow State Institute of Music from 1997, and from 2004 at the Academic Music College attached to the Moscow Conservatory. She regularly gave master classes in various cities in Russia and abroad.

She was the author of about 500 compositions. Her output included the ballets Agitator, Interrupted Song, and Quest; two symphonic suites; two piano concertos; suites for orchestra of Russian folk instruments such as Tales, Russian, Northern Dvina, Non-Folklore Music, Exultant Music, and Bright Music; choral and chamber-instrumental works; arrangements of folk songs; and around 200 works for children, including songs, choruses, games, pieces, operas, and fairy tales.

Among her distinctions were membership in the Union of Composers from 1969, the Lenin Komsomol Prize in 1984 for the symphonic trilogy Dedicated to Soviet Youth, and service as editor-in-chief of the journal Musician. She died in the Central Hospital of Russian Railways in Moscow.