Владимир Шаинский

Владимир Шаинский (English: Vladimir Shainsky; born 12 December 1925, Kiev, Ukrainian SSR – died 25 December 2017, San Diego, California, USA) was a Russian, Soviet and Ukrainian composer. Was married to Ася Султанова.

In 1936, he became a student at the musical school in Kiev, where he learned to play the violin. However, his studies were interrupted by the Great Patriotic War (World War II), when his family was evacuated to Tashkent, Uzbek SSR. He continued to study at the Tashkent Conservatory until he was recruited by the Red Army in 1943. After the war he entered Moscow conservatory, Orchestra Faculty, and graduated in 1949 as a violinist soloist. In the 1950s Shainsky played in Леонид Утесов (English: Leonid Utyosov)'s orchestra, taught young people, and worked as a composer and musical leader at different dance orchestras. In the 1960s he studied in Baku conservatory, the composers faculty.

His first composing works were a string quartet, created in 1963 during his studies in Baku conservatory and a symphony, written in 1965. During his 40-year career as a composer, Shainsky wrote a great number of works for children. He created music and songs for popular cartoons such as Cheburashka, Katerok and Kroshka Enot; for films, including "Breakfast on the Grass", "Aniskin and Fantomas", "Aniskin Again", "School Waltz", "Finist, the Brave Falcon"; for musicals, and even an opera. He wrote many popular songs, like "A Soldier is Walking in the Town", "Russia's Little Corner", "White Birch", "Smile", "Clouds", "A Dog is Lost", "Crocodile Gena's Song". Shainsky has also authored numerous songs in the Yiddish language, still popular with the klezmer orchestras. Vladimir Shainsky was given numerous awards, some of the major ones are the USSR State Prize (1981), People's Artist of the Russian SFSR title (1986), Order of Friendship (1996), multiple laureate of the Russian (formerly Soviet) "Song of the Year" festival (since 1971).

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