Mstislav Rostropovich

创建于2006-05-31     组长： Stereo Sound

Mstislav Rostropovich, born in 1927, Soviet-born musician, the most esteemed cellist of his generation. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (now Azerbaijan), he studied and later taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Since 1950 he has pursued a career as a cellist and conductor. He also performs as pianist in recitals by his wife, the Soviet-born singer Galina Vishnevskaya. Despite winning the Lenin Prize, a Soviet state award, in 1963, he sheltered the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; in 1974 Rostropovich and his wife left the USSR, and in 1978 their citizenship was revoked. Having emigrated to the United States, he became conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., in 1977. He was invited to perform with his orchestra in the USSR in 1990, and his and his wife's Soviet citizenships were restored.