Nicolas Nabokov

Nicolas Nabokov (* 4.jul / April 17 1903greg in Lubcza in Minsk, .. † April 6, 1978 in New York ) was an American composer of Russian origin.

Life

The cousin of the writer Vladimir Nabokov grew up in Russia to underprivileged and had as a child lessons with private teachers. His family fled with him before the October Revolution to the Crimea, where he had first music lessons with Vladimir Ivanovich Rebikov. 1919 the family left Russia, and Nabokov continued his education in Stuttgart and Ferruccio Busoni in Berlin continued.

From 1923 to 1926 he studied in Paris at the Sorbonne. Here is his first major compositions, the ballet - oratorio Ode for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1928) and his first symphony (1931 ) emerged.

In 1933 he was invited by the Barnes Foundation in the United States. Here he was from 1936 to 1941 head of the music department of Wells College in New York, then music director at St. John 's College in Maryland. In 1939 he became an American citizen.

From 1945 to 1947 he held on behalf of the American Military Government in Germany, after which he taught at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. From 1950 to 1951 he was Music Director of the American Academy in Rome. Between 1951 and 1967 he was Secretary General of the CIA -funded Congress for Cultural Freedom. He organized at this time numerous international conferences and music festivals, including Masterpieces of the XXth Century (Paris, 1952), Music in Our Time (Rome, 1954), Eastern and Western Musical Traditions, (Venice, 1956). East - West Music Encounter (Tokyo, 1961) and European and Indian Music Traditions (New Delhi, 1963). Between 1964 Zund 1966 he headed the art festival in West Berlin.

After 1967, he taught at Princeton University, the City University of New York and the State University of New York. From 1970 to 1973 he was Composer in Residence at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies in Colorado.

Nicolas Nabokov has three sons from his three marriages. With his first wife, the Russian Natalie Shakhovskaya, son Ivan; with the second, the American Constance Holladay, son of Peter and with the third, the Franco - american woman Patricia Blake, son Alexander.

In addition to his compositions, Nabokov has written numerous articles for magazines, a book about Igor Stravinsky and two volumes of memoirs, a third band remained unfinished. Nabokov was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and a member of the West Berlin Academy of Arts and the French Society of Composers.

Works

  • Ode, ballet oratorio, 1928
  • Lyrical Symphony, 1931
  • Union Pacific, ballet on a Theme of Archibald MacLeish, 1934
  • The Last Flower, 1941
  • Rasputin 's End, opera on a libretto by Stephen Spender, 1958
  • Don Quixote, Ballet, 1966

Writings

  • Igor Stravinsky, 1964
  • Old Friends and New Music, Memoirs, 1951
  • Bagazh, memoirs, 1975
  • Two right shoes in the luggage. Memoirs of a Russian citizen of the world. Translated from English by Claus H. Henneberg and Hellmut Jaesrich. Munich / Zurich 1975 paperback edition. Dtv, Munich 1979
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