Vladimir Pozhidayev
Vladimir Anatolyevich Pozhidayev (28 June 1946 – 14 April 2009) was a Soviet and Russian composer and film composer. He wrote symphonic works, chamber vocal and instrumental music, and compositions for orchestras of Russian folk instruments. He was born in Ivano-Frankivsk and died in Krasnogorsk.
Born into a military family, Pozhidayev spent his childhood in the Voronezh region, in the villages of Stadnitsa, Bolshaya Vereyka, and Davydovka. In Davydovka he attended secondary school and, from 1960, studied bayan at a music school. From 1964 to 1968 he studied bayan in the Russian folk instruments department of the Voronezh Music College, then became director of the music school in Gremyacheye, Voronezh region.
Between 1970 and 1978, he studied at the history, theory, and composition faculty of the Gnesin State Music and Pedagogical Institute, where he was taught by Aram Khachaturian. At the same time, he taught bayan at the children’s music school in Naro-Fominsk from 1969 to 1972 and led the amateur chamber orchestra of the Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School from 1975 to 1977. He served as chief editor at Rosconcert from 1978 to 1981, organizing concerts and music festivals in Russia. From 1982 he worked for the Union of Composers of Russia; from 1989 until his death, he chaired the Commission for Music for Russian Folk Instruments of the Moscow Union of Composers and helped organize its concerts and the Moscow Autumn and Moscow Spring festivals.
Pozhidayev joined the Union of Soviet Composers in 1984. His major orchestral and vocal-orchestral works include the Summer Symphony (1973), the cantata Golden Dreams for tenor and orchestra on poems by Fyodor Tyutchev (1978), the Symphony On the Nativity of Christ (2001), and Easter Chants, a symphony for soprano, tenor, baritone, and orchestra on spiritual verses (2005). His works for domra and orchestra include two concertos, Concert Symphony No. 1 (2001), Concert Symphony No. 2, based on Yevgeny Nosov’s novella Usvyatsky Helmet-Bearers, and Concert Symphony No. 3, The Year of the Lord, based on a work by Ivan Shmelev. He also composed vocal cycles on poems by Alexey Koltsov, Yury Kuznetsov, Nikolay Rubtsov, and Osip Mandelstam, as well as solo sonatas for flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon.
His output also included the orchestral works The Miraculous Bird Sirin, Rural Music, and Gamayun, the Prophetic Bird; the organ concerto Three Angels; chamber music; choral scenes; and music for documentary films. In 1999 he was named Honored Artist of the Russian Federation. He was buried in Penyagino Cemetery in Krasnogorsk.