Evgeny Feodorovich Svetlanov was a Russian conductor, composer and pianist. He studied composition with Mikhail Gnesin and Yuri Shaporin, conducting with Aleksandr Gauk and piano with Heinrich Neuhaus. From 1955 he has been a conductor of the Bolshoi Theater, having been chief conductor there in 1963-1965. In 1965-2000 he was the artistic director and chief conductor of the State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR (from 1992 – the State Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Evgeny Svetlanov). He was also composer, and among his compositions are: the Symphony in B minor (1956), the symphonic poems “Daugava” (1952) and “Red May Rose” (1975, dedicated to the memory of Vasily Shukshin, the music became the basis for the ballet with the same name, created in 1978), Poem for Violin and Orchestra (in memory of David Oistrakh, 1974), works for chamber ensembles and other compositions. The compositional style of Svetlanov has much in common with the music of Sergey Rachmaninoff.
In the repertoire of Svetlanov the conductor a considerable place was held by works by Russian composers. He created the unique “Anthology of Russian Orchestral Music in Gramophone Recordings.” He wrote numerous articles on music (compiled together into the book “Music Today,” 1985). He was a Laureate of the Lenin Prize in 1972 and of the State Premium of the USSR in 1983.
