Dmitry Smolsky
Belarusian composer Dmitry Smolsky was born in Minsk on 25 July 1937, into the family of musicologist Bronislaw Smolsky. He published his first music at the age of twelve. He studied for a year at the Moscow Conservatoire, but had to return to Minsk for health reasons, and studied instead at the Belarusian State Conservatory.
He taught composition at the Belarusian State Academy of Music from 1962 until 2014.
His compositions deal with the philosophical understanding of human life and destiny in a totalitarian society, and a person's psychological state in dramatic situations. He wrote stage works, orchestral music, instrumental concertos and chamber music, vocal music, choral music, music for theatre and films, and pop music.
Dmitry Smolsky died on 29 September 2017, aged eighty.