Truvor Sheibler
Truvor Sheibler was a Soviet composer, teacher, and conductor, born in Riga, Latvia, on 12 March 1900. He studied composition at the Petrograd Conservatory from 1919 to 1924 with Maximilian Steinberg, while also studying law at Petrograd University. From 1917 to 1924, he worked as a rehearsal pianist and conductor with the Proletkult Theatre and the First Traveling Theatre.
Sheibler moved to Perm in 1928 and led the music department of the Workers’ Youth Theatre until 1938. After completing the directing program at the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts, he lived and worked in Nalchik from 1939 to 1941. He returned there in 1947 and served as artistic director and conductor of the Kabardian Philharmonic until 1949, while also teaching at a music school. His pupils included Yuri Temirkhanov. In 1959, he became chairman of the Composers’ Union of the Kabardino-Balkarian ASSR.
His works include the musical comedy What’s Her Name? (1936), the children’s ballets The Clattering Fly and The Train, and music for more than 200 dramatic productions at the Kabardino-Balkarian Drama Theatre. His other compositions include symphonic suites based on Mansi folk tales (1936); the symphonic pictures Adiukh (1948), based on a Kabardian legend, Madina (1950), based on a poem by A. A. Shogentsukov, and Shepherds in the Mountains (1950); the Kabardian Rhapsody for piano and symphony orchestra (1951); and the musical-choreographic poem The Narts (1957). He was named an Honored Worker of the Arts of the Kabardino-Balkarian ASSR in 1951 and of the Russian SFSR in 1957.
During trips around Kabardino-Balkaria, Sheibler recorded more than 500 examples of musical folklore. His compositions combined European classical traditions with features of local folk songs and instrumental melodies. He also wrote music based on Balkar folklore for R. Gelyaev’s play Bloody Kalym, and composed music for Zalimkhan Aksirov’s play Dakhanago, which was revised for a 1956–57 production in Moscow. Sheibler died in Nalchik on 17 March 1960.