Илья Мусин

Ilya Musin (6 January 1904, O.S. 24 December 1903, Kostroma — 6 June 1999, Saint Petersburg) was a renowned Soviet-Russian conductor, music educator and theorist. With a career spanning over six decades, Musin developed one of the world's most substantial pedagogical practices, still referred to as the "Leningrad school of conducting," and was a primary tutor to dozens and dozens of distinguished conductors in USSR, contemporary Russia, Greece, Italy, UK and all over Europe. Musin began playing piano at the urge of his father, a Jewish watchmaker and enrolled in the Petrograd Conservatory in 1919. Subsequently, he decided to pursue conducting instead and joined Nicolai Malko and Alexander Gauk classes in 1925. Ilya became Fritz Stiedry's assistant at the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra in 1934. Musin was appointed to lead the National Philharmonic Orchestra Of Belarus in Minsk but barely had any career advancements due to his refusal to join the Communist Party. In 1932, Ilya Musin returned from Belarus and began teaching at the Leningrad Conservatory. He developed a comprehensive theoretical system to enable the student to communicate with the orchestra with the hands, requiring minimal verbal instruction. It was one of the most thorough and detailed systems of conducting gestures, and Ilya Musin eventually published The Technique of Conducting manual. From 1941 to '45, Ilya Musin stayed in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where he gave one of his most notable conducting performances. On 22 June 1942, exactly one year after the Nazi invasion, Musin conducted Dmitri Shostakovich's — the second-ever life rendition. In 1994, Musin gave masterclasses at the Royal Academy of Music in London, UK. [u]Notable students[/u] Rudolf Barshai Semyon Bychkov Tugan Sokhiev Oleg Caetani Vassily Sinaisky Konstantin Simeonov Odysseas Dimitriadis Vladislav Chernushenko Viktor Fedotov Arnold Katz Andrei Chistyakov Siân Edwards Martyn Brabbins Peter Jermihov Alexander Walker (3) Yuri Temirkanov Valery Gergiev Teodor Currentzis Leonid Korchmar Oleg Proskurnya, who was Musin's assistant for the "International Conducting Workshop" and founded the Advanced Conducting Academy to continue his work.