Vladimir Sapozhnikov
Vladimir Sapozhnikov was a Soviet and Russian composer and teacher. He was a member of the Union of Composers, served as secretary of the Saint Petersburg Union of Composers, and chaired its section for music for children and young people.
He graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov Leningrad Conservatory in 1972, where he studied composition with Sergei Slonimsky. From 1973 to 1977 he taught at the conservatory, then taught at its affiliated music college until 1982. He later taught composition at the Yevgeny Mravinsky Children's School of Arts in Saint Petersburg.
Sapozhnikov served on the juries of the Alexander Petrov All-Russian Composers' Competition and the children's music competitions Young Talents and Music Is My Soul. He chaired the jury of the Choral Laboratory composers' competition and was artistic director of the international festival Children's Land. He received the title Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation in 2007 and the Saint Petersburg government award for the humanization of schools in Saint Petersburg in 2004.
His works span many genres and include six symphonies, ballets, an opera, oratorios, cantatas, instrumental concertos, and chamber music. Choral works make up a substantial part of his output, and he paid particular attention to music for children. His works include the opera A Wife Was Seeing Her Husband Off to Paris (1972), based on a story by Vasily Shukshin; the ballets Twenty-Six and One (1971), based on a poem by Maxim Gorky, and The Brave Little Tailor (1986), based on the Brothers Grimm; and the oratorios Memory Will Not Grow Cold (1977) and The Twelve (1987), based on Alexander Blok's poem.
Other works include the cantatas Rainbow-Arc, Beautiful Month of May, Field of Kulikovo, and Peace (Grant Us Peace); the choral poem Glory; a symphonic poem, Call of Joy (1983); three piano sonatas; and songs for voice and piano setting poems by Alexander Pushkin, Andrei Voznesensky, and Marina Tsvetaeva. Sapozhnikov died in Fox Nose, Saint Petersburg, on June 11, 2026.