Saint Petersburg Conservatory

The Saint Petersburg Conservatory is a famous music school in Saint Petersburg, Russia.  Its full name is N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory ().  In 2004, the conservatory had around 275 teaching members and 1,400 students.

History 
The conservatory was founded in 1862 by the Russian pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein.  When he resigned in 1867, he was followed by Nikolai Zaremba.  The great composer Rimsky-Korsakov joined the teaching staff in 1871.  The conservatory was named after him in 1944. 

In 1887, Rubinstein returned to the Conservatory to try to improve it.  Students who were not very good had to leave, and he also got rid of some of the professors and made the entrance examinations harder.  He resigned again in 1891.

The  building  we see today was built in the 1890s where the Bolshoi Theatre of Saint Petersburg had stood.  It still has the grand staircase and landing from that historic theatre. As the city changed its name in the 20th century, the conservatory was  renamed Petrograd Conservatory (Петроградская консерватория) and then the Leningrad Conservatory (Ленинградская консерватория).

Today, it is a famous Russian composition school whose graduates have included great composers such as Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich. During the 1960s, Shostakovich taught at the conservatory, which made it even more famous.

 Directors and rectors 
 Anton Rubinstein (1862 — 1867)
 Nikolai Zaremba (1867 — 1871)
 Mikhail Azanchevsky (1871 — 1876)
 Karl Davydov (1876 — 1887)
 Anton Rubinstein (1887 — 1891)
 Alexander Glazunov (1905 — 1928, as of 1918 — rector)

Notable teachers 
 Leopold Auer (violin)
 Ilya Musin (conducting)
 Leonid Nikolayev (piano)
 Cesare Pugni (violin, counterpoint, composition)
 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (composition, orchestration)
 Anton Rubinstein (piano, the history of piano literature)
 Nikolai Tcherepnin (conducting)
 Sergei Slonimsky (composition)
 Leah Zelikhman (piano)

 Notable graduates 
 George Balanchine – choreographer
 Richard Burgin - violinist, conductor
 Sergei Diaghilev - impressario
 Valery Gergiev
 Jascha Heifetz - violinist
 Alexander Ilyinsky
 Mariss Jansons
 Artur Kapp
 Eduard Khil - singer and internet sensation
 Miroslav Kultyshev
 Anatoly Lyadov
 Witold Maliszewski
 Nathan Milstein - violinist
 Anna Netrebko
 Sergei Prokofiev - composer
 Gal Rasche - conductor
 Sergei Rachmaninoff - pianist, composer
 Clara Rockmore
 Dmitri Shostakovich - composer
 Grigory Sokolov - pianist
 Vladimir Sofronitsky
 Yuri Temirkanov - conductor
 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - composer
 Solomon Volkov - musicologist
 Ivan Yershov - singer
 Anna Yesipova - pianist
 Maria Yudina - pianist
 Valery Viktorovich Zhelobinsky - pianist, composer

Related pages
Moscow Conservatory

Other websites

Official site

Category:Music schools
Category:Buildings and structures in Saint Petersburg