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By Olga Fyodorova
The year 1966… There are two musicians chatting outside the Conservatory
Big Hall in Moscow.
“You’re also heading to the conductor’s competition, aren’t you?…”
“Yes, I guess it’s the first such competition we ever had around here…”
“Right. The last time we had a conductor’s contest here was about 30 years
ago… You look too young, lady, to remember that, but the names of its winners
are now very well known to all. Yevgeny Mravinsky was the first prizewinner
then…”
“Oh, really? Are there any big hopefuls now? I guess that, as a jury member,
you must know who’s going to win what?”
“Competition was real tough, you know. We are on the home stretch now and
I’m still not sure about the winners, but I know who’s going to fetch the
main prize…”
“Are you saying you have a clear leader?”
“Yes, Yuri Temirkanov, a young man from the Caucasus, fresh from the Leningrad
Conservatory… A born conductor, artistic, smart and a good mover
too! He is competing in today’s finals and I’m sure he will be all right!”
Yuri Temirkanov was born in December 1938, in Kabardino-Balkaria in the
North Caucasus. There were no musicians in his family and classical music
was only finding its way into the small autonomous republic. Impressed
by Yuri’s musical talent that was absolutely impossible to hide, his parents
sent him to the local music school. At age 13, the young prodigy was advised
to go to Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, where he enrolled in a school for
musically endowed children under the Leningrad Conservatory.
The city of many palaces, museums and theaters left an indelible imprint
on the young man who had never seen a streetcar before, just like he hadn’t
a trolleybus, heard an opera or listened to a live symphony orchestra.
It was during that very first symphony concert in his life that Yuri made
up his mind to become a conductor…
His road to success was long and winding. Finishing the music school as
a viola-player, Temirkanov entered the Conservatory and, graduating from
their viola department, he tried his luck again, this time entering the
conductor’s department, and was assigned to the class of the formidable
Professor Ilya Musin who, quickly appreciating the young man’s talent,
gave him a real crash course. The results of this hard work did not take
long in coming and Temirkanov conducted a variety of orchestras while still
a student, and even had a chance to steer the Maly Opera and Ballet Theater’s
orchestra through a presentation of “La Traviata” by Giuseppe Verdi. This
was followed by a resounding success at a major national competition in
Moscow and, shortly after that, Yuri Temirkanov was appointed to lead one
of the city’s symphony orchestras.
Working hard to expand his repertoire, Temirkanov was now rehearsing symphonies
by Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler and Tchaikovsky along with the colorist works
of the Impressionists, his inspiration literally mesmerizing the musicians
and listeners alike…
In 1976 Yuri Temirkanov was appointed artistic director and chief conductor
of Leningrad’s Kirov Opera and Ballet Theater, now the Mariinsky, turning
out a constellation of masterpieces, such as the “Dead Souls” by Rodion
Shchedrin, “Don Carlos” by Giuseppe Verdi and “The Queen of Spades” by
Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
He also tried his hand as an opera director offering an excellent staging
of Tchaikovsky’s “Evgeny Onegin.”
The Seventies saw the beginning of action-packed foreign tours where Yuri
Temirkanov partnered on stage with the world’s leading orchestras inviting
a flurry of rave reviews in the press…
He found working with an orchestra to be much more interesting than working
in the theater though, because working in the theater you only have a definite
set of productions to work on while stage appearances offer you a veritable
kaleidoscope of different programs. Driven and impulsive, Temirkanov was
always on the quest of new impressions. Hence the pride and joy he felt
when members of the Leningrad Philharmonic orchestra, the country’s best
such outfit, elected him their chief conductor…
In 1988 Yuri Temirkanov took over from the late Yevgeny Mravinsky, the
legendary maestro who led the orchestra for nearly half a century. The
formidable Mravinsky was not getting any younger, just like his favorites
in the orchestra. And still, his phenomenal drive kept the orchestra together,
but after he was gone, the whole thing started falling apart… Yuri Temirkanov
brought in fresh new blood and set new and very challenging goals. Before
very long, Temirkanov’s talent, coupled with hard work, started yielding
good results…
Led by their new chief conductor, the Leningrad Philharmonic orchestra
made a series of triumphal tours of Europe, the United States and Japan
always stunning the audiences with their refined and noble sound, clockwork
precision and, above all, the very unorthodox renditions offered by their
artistic director…
Yuri Temirkanov’s red-hot interpretations and his towering persona really
boggle the mind, the New York Times wrote. His arms are unbelievably expressive
and everyone can appreciate the tight precision the orchestra plays with
guided by these amazing arms…
Yuri Temirkanov regularly partners on stage with symphony orchestras in
London, Berlin, Philadelphia, Vienna, Cleveland, Chicago and New York and
has spent the past two years conducting and directing the Baltimore Symphony…
His life is now divided between Russia and America with occasional brief
appearances in Europe. And still, Yuri Temirkanov’s heart is always with
his beloved city on the Neva where each December he holds the very respectable
Arts Square festival that international megastars never miss a chance
to play in. The festival offers dozens of concerts plus Christmas and New
Year balls where Yuri Temirkanov is a guest-loving host carefully tending
to Music he has so selflessly and diligently served for nearly 60 years
now…
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