Mykola Mykolaiovych Ikonnikov (b. 5 March 1879, Kyiv - † 10 September 1957, Barnaul) was a composer, music teacher, founder, director and teacher of the M. Ikonnikov Kyiv Music and Drama School (1905-1909).
Biography.
Mykola Ikonnikov was born on 5 March 1879 in Kyiv to a noble family of a process engineer Mykola Mykhailovych and Augusta Vilhelmivna (maiden name Steingel) Ikonnikov. His grandfather Mikhail Stepanovich Ikonnikov was a Kyiv provincial architect. His grandfather's brother, Volodymyr Stepanovych Ikonnikov, was a prominent scholar, historian and academician.
His parents provided Mykola with a high-quality primary education at home, on the basis of which he attended a Kyiv gymnasium.
In 1895-1898, he studied at the Stanislav Blumenfeld Music and Drama School, and later, possibly, took composition lessons at the Music School of the Kyiv branch of the Russian Musical Society. In 1900-1901, he taught piano playing at one of the music and drama schools.
According to archival data, in 1903 Mykola Ikonnikov defended his thesis in Paris and became a "professor of general cosmognosy", and in August 1906 - "professor of musical sciences".
In 1905, he founded a music and drama school in Kyiv, where he was both director and piano teacher.
During the revolution of 1905-1907, he published the newspaper "Herald of Freedom" in Kyiv, where he tried to give an objective assessment of the events taking place in the country. At the same time, he taught mathematics, physics, and chemistry at courses in Kyiv and at the gymnasium of the Scientific and Educational Society in Sviatoshyno.
Mykola Ikonnikov died on 10 September 1957 in Barnaul from heart dystrophy and paralysis. His numerous papers were thrown into a landfill, where they were discovered by neighbours and transferred to the Archive Storage Centre of the Altai Territory.
The personal collection of M. M. Ikonnikov in the Central Archive of the Altai Krai (R-913) consists of 85 files. The researcher of M. M. Ikonnikov's biography is Andrii Kolesnikov, PhD in History, Chief Archaeographer of the Information and Publication Department of the Altai Territory Archival Affairs Administration.
Ikonnikov's private music and drama school
In 1905, Mykola Ikonnikov founded a music and drama school in Kyiv, where he was both the director and a piano teacher. The address of the school was 45 Reitarska Street.
The school fee for a month was 11 krb, for the poor - 8 krb.
The school taught composition theory, piano, instrumentation, conducting, choral singing, opera singing, and orchestral instruments, including wind instruments.
Among the teachers of the school was, in particular, a well-known music teacher of the time, K. Vout, who taught instrumentation, orchestration, conducting, and orchestral instruments.
The school operated until 1909.
