Konstantin Ivanov (conductor)

The third man to hold the post of conductor of the USSR State Symphony Orchestra, Konstantin Konstantinovich Ivanov (1907–1984), is known from a number of recordings made by the old USSR state recording company Melodiya, but biographical information about him has been hard to find.

A brief article in The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia says he was born in 1907 in the town of Yefremov or Efremov (Russian: Ефре́мов) in the Tula Oblast. At the age of 13, he was adopted by a regiment of the Red Army. He became a trumpeter in army orchestras. He attended the Moscow Conservatory where he studied conducting with the conductor L. M. Ginzburg. Ivanov graduated in 1937, and the following year won the third prize at the first edition of the All-Union Conductors Competition. Engagements with the Bolshoi Theatre and the All-Union Radio Symphony Orchestra followed in 1941.

In 1945, Ivanov succeeded Nathan Rakhlin as Principal Conductor of the USSR State Symphony Orchestra. Under Ivanov’s direction, the orchestra began an extensive program of touring. Initially this was to the republics of the Soviet Union, but in 1956 it performed in the Soviet allied states of Poland and Romania. As the Cold War thawed, Ivanov and the orchestra travelled outside the Communist bloc. In 1958 they made an appearance at an international exposition in Brussels where they performed for Queen Elizabeth of Belgium. In the same year they also visited China. In 1960, the orchestra visited the United States, then in 1961 appeared at the Vienna Festival.

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