FROM ROME: Keep in touch with the Italian opera and classical music scene by reading Giuseppe Pennisi's regular reports.
VIDEO PODCAST: Slava Ukraini! - recorded on 24 February 2022, the day Europe woke up to the news that Vladimir Putin's Russian forces had invaded Ukraine. A fifty minute video which also features Caitríona O'Leary and Eric Fraad discussing their new film Island of Saints, and pays tribute to Joseph Horovitz, Malcolm Troup and Maria Nockin.
Russian composer Aleksey Semyonovich Zhivotov was born in Kazan on either 1 November or 14 November 1904.
Very little is known about his life, except that he studied at the Leningrad Conservatory (1924-30) with M M Chernov and with Soviet composer Vladimir Vladimirovich Shcherbachov, and that he took an active part in the musical life of Leningrad, became a committee member of the Leningrad Composers' Union and (from 1961-4) was chairman of the Leningrad Branch of the Musical Fund.
Known works include a Suite for large orchestra (1928), Fragments for Nonet (1929) and the vocal-symphonic cycle West (1932). He also wrote film music, including for Za sovetskuyu rodinu (For the Soviet Motherland, also known as Ski Battalion, 1937), Vesna v Moskve (Spring in Moscow, 1953) and Dvenadtsataya noch (Twelfth Night, 1955).
Aleksey Zhivotov died in Leningrad on 27 August 1964, aged fifty-nine.