Yevgeny Kolobov

'Conducting is a profession that looks beautiful but is tragic: many people stand between me and the music.' - Yevgeny Kolobov

The Russian conductor Yevgeny Kolobov was born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) on 19 January 1946.

Kolobov studied at the Glinka Chapel Song School in Leningrad, and at the Urals State Conservatory. He worked at the Yekaterinburg Theatre of Opera and Ballet as Principal Conductor (1974-81), at St Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre (1981-7) and, from 1987, was Musical Director of Moscow's Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre. From 1991, he was co-founder, Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Novaya Opera Theatre of Moscow. He conducted the first performances of many operas in Russia, and he toured extensively.

Yevgeny Kolobov died in Moscow of a heart attack on 15 June 2003, aged fifty-seven.