Alla Yevhenivna Pavlova (born July 13, 1952, Vinnytsia, Ukraine) is a Russian composer of Ukrainian descent. She is widely known for her symphonic works. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
During the Soviet era, Alla Pavlova's family lived in Moscow since 1961. In 1971, Pavlova entered the Ippolitov-Ivanov Moscow Music School.
In 1972, she married and gave birth to a daughter, Irina, who became a Russian critic and novelist.
In 1972, Pavlova composed her first piece of music, Lullaby for Irina, for piano, violin (or flute), and vibraphone.
In 1975, Alla Pavlova graduated from the Ippolitov-Ivanov Moscow Music School. After that, she entered the Gnessin State Music School. At the Gnessin State Music School, she studied with composer Armen Shahbaghian. During her years at the Gnessin State Music School, Pavlova was introduced to the works of Akhmatova, who had a significant influence on many of her compositions.
In 1983, after graduating from the Gnessin State Music College, Pavlova moved to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, where she worked at the Bulgarian Composers' Union. In 1986, three years later, she returned to Moscow. From 1986, until moving to New York, she worked at the Music Society of the Council of Ministers of Russia. In 1990, Alla Pavlova moved to New York.
American life
After moving to New York, during the first half of the 1990s, Alla Pavlova worked on small-scale works for piano and composed a collection of piano pieces based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales for her daughter Irina. In 1994, Pavlova composed her first major work, Symphony No. 1, Farewell to Russia, for violin, cello, piano, flute, and piccolo[1]. In 1994, the Symphony No. 1 "Farewell, Russia" was performed in Russia by soloists of the Moscow Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra.
Pavlova worked on Symphony No. 1 "Farewell, Russia" for four years. On September 11, 2001, Pavlova, shocked by the terrorist attacks on New York, composed a song in memory of the victims of the attacks.
In 1998, Pavlova composed Symphony No. 2 for the New Millennium, which remains her most ambitious work. Symphony No. 2 for the New Millennium was a turning point in Pavlova's musical career. After that, she began to work on large orchestral works.
In 2000, she composed the monumental Symphony No. 3, characterized by vivid expressiveness and considered Pavlova's masterpiece. In Symphony No. 3, Pavlova adds the guitar as a colorful element to the traditional orchestral instruments.
In 2002, she composed Symphony No. 4 and the Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra. For the next two years, she worked on a symphonic suite for the ballet Sulamif based on a story by Alexander Kuprin.
In 2006, Pavlova composed Symphony No. 5. In 2008, she composed Symphony No. 6. In 2008-2009, she works on the ballet suite Thumbelina. In 2011, she composes Symphony No. 7 and Symphony No. 8.
Works.
Alla Pavlova's music was influenced by Russian masters of the twentieth century (Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Rachmaninoff, etc.) Each of her works is intertwined with Russian national traditional motifs.
1972 - "Lullaby for Irina" for piano, violin (or flute) and vibraphone.
1974 - two songs based on Akhmatova's poems for soprano and piano.
1974 - "We Are Love" based on poems by Alla Pavlova for mezzo-soprano and piano quartet.
1979 - "Dream" based on poems by Anna Akhmatova for soprano and piano.
1990 - pieces for piano based on fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen
1993 - "Winter Morning" based on poems by Alexander Pushkin for soprano, cello and flute.
1994 - Prelude for piano "For My Mother".
1994 - "Summer Sketches" for piano.
1994 - Symphony No. 1 "Farewell, Russia" for chamber orchestra.
1995 - "Old New York. Nostalgia" suite for piano.
1997 - "I need you. But I have to go" for violin, cello, two guitars and mezzo-soprano.
1998 - "I Loved You", masterpieces of Russian poetry for mezzo-soprano, violin and piano.
1998 - Elegy for piano and string orchestra.
1998 - Symphony No. 2 "For the New Millennium".
1998 - "Old New York. Nostalgia" suite for string orchestra, percussion alto saxophone, tenor saxophone and trumpet.
2000 - Symphony No. 3.
2002 - Symphony No. 4.
2002 - Concerto for violin and string orchestra.
2003 - 2004 - Suite for ballet "Sulamif".
2003 - 2005 - Sulamif, ballet.
2006 - Symphony No. 5.
2008 - Symphony No. 6.
2008 - 2009 - Suite for the ballet Thumbelina.
2011 - Symphony No. 7.
2011 - Symphony No. 8 (2011).
