Igor Puchkov was born in 1976 into a family of choir conductors, which in a way determined his future career. The future maestro graduated from the Petro Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine with a degree in violin from professors Oleksiy Horokhov and Olga Rivnyak (2004). As an orchestral artist, he worked in leading Ukrainian orchestras such as the National Presidential Orchestra, the National Honoured Academic Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, and in German orchestras, including the Philharmonie der Nationen, L`Orchestra I sedici, Barock orchester Berlin, and toured Western Europe, the USA, South Africa, and China.
Subsequently, Igor Puchkov completed his master's degree (2018) and an assistantship (2020) at the Petro Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine in the class of opera and symphony conducting under the guidance of People's Artist of Ukraine Professor Allin Vlasenko. Over the years, he has collaborated as a conductor with the National Operetta of Ukraine, the Borys Liatoshynskyi Classical Music Ensemble, the State Academic Pop and Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, the Symphony Orchestra of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Philharmonic, the Opera Studio Orchestra of the Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine, the National Presidential Orchestra, the Dnipro Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, and participated in many festivals in Ukraine.
He gained high professional experience working under the baton of many famous conductors of Ukraine and the world, in particular his scientific supervisor Allin Vlasenko, as well as Luigi Sagrestano, Zakhar Bron, Mykola Diadiura, Volodymyr Sirenko, Volodymyr Kozhukhar, Viktor Ikonnyk, Vyacheslav Blinov and others. Igor Puchkov's conducting repertoire includes: symphonic and chamber works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Franz Schubert, Giuseppe Verdi, Alexander Scriabin, Franz von Zuppe, Antonin Dvořák, César Franck, Hector Berlioz, Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Rodion Shchedrin, Yevhen Stankovych, Miroslav Skoryk; operas by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Giuseppe Verdi, as well as individual arias from operas and Ukrainian folk songs.
In 2016, Ihor Puchkov founded and headed the Kyiv Youth Orchestra, a group of young Ukrainian performers. He has been working in the National Chamber Ensemble "Kyiv Soloists" since 2019.
