Eleonora Volodymyrivna Bezano-Piradova (11 June 1929, Tbilisi - 11 July 2012, Kyiv) was a Ukrainian concertmaster-accompanist, People's Artist of Ukraine (1998), and a long-time member of the Artistic Council of the National Philharmonic of Ukraine.
Biography
She was born on 11 June 1929 in Tbilisi.
She started playing the piano at the age of six. She spent her childhood in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Alma-Ata (evacuated during the war), and Moscow.
After the Second World War, she completed a ten-year musical training programme in Kharkiv. In 1953, she graduated with honours from the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatoire, class of Professor G. Ginzburg, and from September of that year she worked as a concertmaster of the National Philharmonic of Ukraine for many decades until her last day in 2012.
Her first solo concert was with her father, Volodymyr Piradov, as conductor, performing the First Piano Concerto by Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian.
She has repeatedly presented Ukrainian music abroad as a member of concert groups in such countries as Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Canada, the USA, France, Switzerland, Cyprus, Italy, Germany and the GDR, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia with such world-famous singers as H. Tsypola, A. Solovyachenko, D. Petrynenko, E. Myroshnychenko, B. Rudenko, O. Chulyuk-Zahrai.
She took part in the Days of Ukrainian Literature and Art in all the republics of the USSR, in numerous Ukrainian and all-Union festivals.
She has prepared and performed hundreds of solo concerts: with People's Artists of Ukraine A. Volkova, L. Kondrashevska, A. Mokrenko, L. Ostapenko, and Honoured Artist Y. Shutko.
With her participation, operas were staged in concert:
"Eugene Onegin" by P. Tchaikovsky,
"La Traviata by G. Verdi,
a concert performance of Taras Shevchenko's poem "Haydamaky" - music by R. Glier and K. Stetsenko.
She conducted solo programmes based on the works of D. Bortnyansky, P. Tchaikovsky, M. Glinka, G. Verdi, G. Rossini, foreign classics and Ukrainian composers.
She was a diploma winner of the Mussorgsky All-Union Competition, a laureate of the Slavs and S. Gulak-Artemovsky international awards.
Tomb of Eleonora Bezano-Piradova and her parents, Baikove cemetery
She prepared chamber operas for the National Philharmonic: "Cossack Beyond the Danube", "Natalka Poltavka", "Eugene Onegin", "The Falcon", and the "Lilac" programme dedicated to the works of Sergei Rachmaninoff - in these productions she performed the functions of an orchestra.
She prepared and conducted concerts in the Mykola Lysenko Column Hall, took part in subscription concerts.
She died on 11 July 2012. Less than a day later, Eleonora Bezano-Piradova's husband, Leonid Tendiuk, died. She was buried at the Baikove cemetery together with her parents.
Family.
Father - Volodymyr Piradov (1892-1954), People's Artist of Ukraine and Kazakhstan, chief conductor of the Kyiv Opera and Ballet Theatre.
Mother - Alla Bezano (1905-1991), ballerina, came from the Italian family of circus performers Bezano.
Husband - Leonid Tendiuk (1931-2012), poet and prose writer.
Awards.
Chevalier of the Order of the Badge of Honour, the Red Banner of Labour, recipient of the Order of Princess Olga, III degree, People's Artist of Ukraine.
