Alexander Alexeev (conductor)

Alexander Alexeev (Russian: Александр Васильевич Алексеев, tr. Aleksandr Vasil'yevich Alekseyev) (born March 10, 1938) is a Russian conductor.

Alexander Alexeev in a rehearsal (1973).

Alexeev was born in Belkovo (Novgorod Oblast), Russia. From 1957 to 1966 he studied choral and symphonic conducting (with K. A. Olchova and Edouard Grikurov) at the Leningrad Conservatory, and 1971-1972, after being selected by cultural authorities in Moscow and Leningrad, as one of very few Russian conductors like Mariss Jansons, as a student of Hans Swarowsky at the Vienna Music Academy.[1]

Hans Swarowsky teaching and conducting in Ossiach (1972). Alexander Alexeev to his left.

He held first positions as conductor at the Ulyanovsk State Symphony Orchestra, the Leningrad State Academic Maly Opera Theatre (today Mikhailovsky Theatre), as well as the Chelyabinsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, before becoming Music Director of the Ulyanovsk State Symphony Orchestra. After two years at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow (1982-84), Alexeev, who never joined the communist party, was declined to accept an offer to serve as Music Director of the Finnish Radio Orchestra in Helsinki, and had to stay in the Soviet Union, where he worked until 1992 as Music Director of the Kharkov Philharmonic Orchestra. Alexeev recorded with different orchestras in Russia for the label Melodya, including the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra,[2] as well performed regularly with leading musicians of the Soviet Union like Gidon Kremer, Oleg Kagan, Vadim Repin, Yuri Bashmet, David Geringas, Natalia Gutman, Dmitri Alexeev, Mikhail Pletnev, Grigory Sokolov, and Dmitri Bashkirov.

Mstislav Rostropovich (center), Alexander Alexeev (center right), and Eduard Serov (right) with students in Wolgograd (1973).

Among numerous productions in Leningrad, he conducted in 1966 Katerina Izmailova at the Leningrad State Academic Maly Opera Theatre with Larisa Avdeyeva as Katerina Lvovna Ismailova and the composer Dmitri Shostakovich involved in the rehearsals.

In 1978 Alexeev was awarded with the honorary title of Honored Artist of the RSFSR.[3]

Since 1992 he joins the faculty of symphonic conducting at the Saint Petersburg State Conservatory, and served between 2000 and 2008 as head of the conducting department.