Зиновий Дунаевский

Zinovy Dunaevsky (1908 — 1981) was a Soviet composer and conductor, the Merited Artist of the Ukrainian SSR (1954), brother of Isaak Dunaevsky and Semyon Dunaevsky. He studied composition with Semyon Bogatyrev at the Kharkiv Conservatory, and after graduating in 1929, Zinovy started taking lessons with Mikhail Fabianovich Gnesin in Moscow. From 1940 to 1944, Zinovy Dunaevsky was an artistic director of the state NKVD Song and Dance Ensemble. Throughout the World War II, the Ensemble gave over 1700 live concerts in the warzone, as well as 130 radio broadcasts, and had been collaborating with Dmitri Shostakovich. Past members of the orchestra included Yuri Silantiev, Karen Khachaturian, Ivan Shmelev and other prominent Soviet composers and artists. During the war, Dunaevsky also led ensembles of the Transbaikal and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts. Dunaevsky dedicated most of his career and music works to Donbass region. He is the author of famous Miner's Waltz («Шахтёрский вальс» in Russian), and also founded a Miner's Song and Dance Ensemble of the Donbass in 1938.