Bikhter, Mikhail Alekseevich

Born Apr. 11 (23), 1881, in Moscow; died May 7, 1947, in Leningrad. Soviet pianist, conductor, and teacher. Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR (1938).

Bikhter was a pupil of A. N. Esipova (piano) and N. N. Cherepnin (conducting). From 1912 to 1917 he was conductor at the Theater of Musical Drama in St. Petersburg. As an artist and educator he specialized in the field of chamber ensemble and accompaniment. He was an outstanding accompanist, performing with the singers M. I. Brian, N. I. Zabela-Vrubel’, I. A. Alchevskii, and especially V. O. Dukhovskaia, with whom he toured the country a great deal beginning in the 1920’s. Beginning in 1934, Bikhter was a professor of chamber singing at the Leningrad Conservatory.