Vladimir Drozdov

Vladimir Drozdov was a Russian and American pianist and composer, the author of piano works including three sonatas, and a co-founder of the Pushkin Society of America. He was born on 25 May 1882 in Saratov into a musical family: his father, Nikolai Drozdov, was a pianist and composer, and his mother, Olga Balmasheva-Drozdova, taught music at the Saratov Music School. He was the eldest of three sons, all of whom became musicians.

He received his general education at the Saratov Realschule and studied music at the Saratov Music School, now the Saratov Conservatory, and later at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. There he studied piano with Anna Yesipova and composition with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He later continued his artistic development with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna.

Drozdov performed in concert in Russia and abroad. From 1907 he taught at the Petrograd Conservatory, where he was a professor from 1914 to 1917. In 1923 he moved abroad and eventually settled in the United States, where he gave concerts and taught in his own studio in New York.

He died on 11 March 1960 in New York. Original manuscripts of the composer are preserved in the Scientific Library of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and in the private collection of his family. He was married to Anna Drozdova, a graduate of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Their children, daughter Natalia and son Pavel, studied music in their father's studio and performed both together and individually.