Iampolskii, Abram Ilich

Born Sept. 29 (Oct. 11), 1890, in Ekaterinoslav, now Dnepropetrovsk; died Aug. 17, 1956, in Moscow. Soviet violinist and teacher. Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR (1937). Doctor of art studies (1940).

In 1913, Iampol’skii graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he had studied violin under S. P. Korguev and composition under N. A. Sokolov, Ia. Vitol, and M. O. Shtein-berg. He subsequently made appearances as a violinist and conductor. He taught at the Ekaterinoslav Music School from 1913 to 1920, when he became assistant concertmaster of the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. A founder of Persimfans (First Symphony Ensemble of the Moscow City Soviet), he served as one of its directors from 1922 to 1932. He became an instructor at the Moscow Conservatory in 1922 and a professor in 1926.

An outstanding violin teacher, Iampol’skii founded one of the leading schools of Soviet violin playing; among his students was L. B. Kogan. Iampol’skii wrote methodological works, including “A Method for Working with Students” (in Trudy Gosudarstven-nogo Muzykal’no-pedagogicheckogo instituto im. Gnesinykh, 1959) and “Training the Fingers and Their Placement on the Strings” (in Essays on Methods of Teaching Violin, 1960). Iampol’skii was awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.