Gurtovoi, Timofei

Born Feb. 23, 1919, in Grigoriopol’, in present-day Dubossary Raion, Moldavian SSR. Soviet conductor. People’s Artist of the USSR (1967). Member of the CPSU since 1951.

Gurtovoi studied in Odessa at the music school and conservatory (1935–40). He graduated in 1949 from the G. Muzichesku Kishinev Conservatory (B. S. Miliutin’s conducting class). He was an artist with the symphony orchestra at the Moldavian Conservatory (Kishinev) from 1946 to 1950, a conductor in 1950–51, and artistic director from 1951; in 1953 he became the orchestra’s chief conductor and artistic director. He was responsible for the first staging of Styrchia’s opera The Heart of Domnika, at the Moldavian Theater of Opera and Ballet in 1960. He teaches in the G. Muzichesku Art Institute (he became an assistant professor in 1958). He was a deputy to the sixth convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and has been awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and medals.