Orlov, Aleksandr Ivanovich

Orlov, Aleksandr Ivanovich

 

Born Aug. 18 (30), 1873, in St. Petersburg; died Oct. 10, 1948, in Moscow. Soviet conductor. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1945).

Orlov studied violin with P. A. Krasnokutskii at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and conducting with P. F. Iuon in Berlin. In 1902 he began conducting symphonies and operas in southern Russia. From 1912 to 1917 he conducted S. A. Koussevitsky’s symphony orchestra in Moscow, and between 1914 and 1924 he also staged a number of operatic productions. From 1925 to 1929, Orlov was principal conductor of the Kiev State Academic Ukrainian Opera and a professor at the Kiev Conservatory; one of his students was N. G. Rakhlin. In 1930, Orlov became head of the Bol’shoi Symphony Orchestra of the All-Union Radio; he was the first to perform many works by Soviet composers, and he was in charge of organizing opera performances over the radio and at the Moscow Conservatory.

REFERENCE

Kochetov, V. “A. I. Orlov.” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1948, no. 10.