Vasily Zolotaryov, whose real surname was Kuyumzhi, was a Russian and Soviet composer and pedagogue. He was born on March 7, 1873, in Taganrog in the Russian Empire, and died on May 25, 1964, in Moscow, USSR. He taught at the Moscow Conservatory named after Pyotr Tchaikovsky and was later named Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1932, People's Artist of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1949, and a recipient of the Stalin Prize, second class, in 1950.
He studied from 1883 to 1892 in the instrumental class of the Court Singing Chapel in St. Petersburg with Professor P. A. Krasnokutsky in violin and Anatoly Lyadov in counterpoint. From 1893 to 1898 he studied composition with Mily Balakirev, and from 1898 to 1900 he continued his education at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's free composition class. After completing his studies, he began teaching at the Court Chapel.
In 1905 Zolotaryov left St. Petersburg. From 1908 to 1918 he worked at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1918, already a professor, he went to teach in Rostov-on-Don, then in Krasnodar from 1920 to 1924, where together with Samuil Marshak he took part in creating the Children's Town, and later in Odessa from 1924 to 1926. From 1926 to 1931 he taught at the Mykola Lysenko Kyiv Music and Drama Institute.
From 1931 to 1933 he worked in Sverdlovsk at the Pyotr Tchaikovsky Music Technical School, where he organized the first composition class in the Urals. In 1933 he moved to Minsk, where he taught at the Byelorussian Conservatory until 1941. There he wrote the symphony Belarus in 1934. Among the musicians who studied with him were Aleksandr Bogatyryov, Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Boris Gibalin, Konstantin Dankevich, Mikhail Paverman, Leonid Polovinkin, Aleksandr Sveshnikov, Mikhail Kroshner, Dmitry Lukas, and Vladimir Olovnikov.
Zolotaryov's output was broad, though opera was listed as his principal genre. His stage works included the operas The Decembrists, later revised as Kondraty Ryleyev, Khvesko Andyber, and Ak-Gyul; the operetta Rikiki; the vaudeville The School Teacher; and the ballet Prince-Lake. He also wrote cantatas, among them Paradise and the Peri, the Shevchenko Suite, and Glory.
His symphonic works included Symphony No. 1, Symphony of Wrath; Symphony No. 2, The Year 1905; Symphony No. 3, The Chelyuskinites; Symphony No. 4, Belarusian; Symphony No. 5, The Year 1941; My Motherland; and Symphony No. 7. He composed chamber and orchestral music as well, including a piano concerto, a cello concerto, string quartets, a piano trio, violin sonatas, the Capriccio on a Jewish Melody, the suite about Navoi, orchestral suites on Moldavian, Uzbek, Tajik, and Belarusian themes, and the Fergana March. His sacred choral works included Cherubic Hymn, Mercy of Peace, and Our Father, and he also wrote songs and romances for voice and piano.
His distinctions included the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, medals, the Rubinstein Prize for his examination cantata Paradise and the Peri, and a prize in the twenty-fourth composition competition for a string quartet organized by the St. Petersburg Society of Chamber Music. He also published the manual Fugue: A Guide to Practical Study and the autobiographical essay Memories of My Great Teachers, Friends, and Comrades.
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