Russian and Soviet Ukrainian cellist, conductor, and teacher. Honored Artist of the Ukrainian SSR, professor.
Biography.
In 1907-1912, he studied cello at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Professor E. F. Gerbek.
Until February 1917, he played the cello in the court orchestra of the Imperial Mariinsky Theater.
During the Civil War, he moved to Yekaterinodar, where he served as director of the newly established conservatory for a year and a half.
In 1923, he moved to Kharkiv, where he served as a cellist in the State Opera Orchestra (now the Mykola Lysenko Kharkiv National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater). Later he became the conductor of this theater. In 1926-1927, he founded the Kharkiv Philharmonic Orchestra.
He was the first conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the Ukrainian Radio, established in Kharkiv in 1929. In 1932, he was replaced by Herman Adler.
In 1925, he became dean of the instrumental faculty of the Kharkiv State Higher Music and Drama Courses, and in 1926 he became the head of the courses. His wife, Vira Viktorivna Marachek-Rosenstein, taught at the piano department there.
In September 1927, Yakiv Rosenstein began teaching at the Kharkiv Music and Drama Institute (now the Ivan Kotliarevsky Kharkiv National University of Arts) as a professor of cello, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and conducting techniques; in 1929, he became vice-rector of the institute's academic department.
During his 8 years of teaching in Kharkiv, he trained such specialists as: P. Balenko, M. Budiansky, I. Vymer, F. Dolhova, K. Doroshenko, D. Klebanov, B. Kozhevnykov, V. Nakhabin, V. Tolba, and others.
In 1934, he moved to Kyiv, where the capital of Ukraine was relocated. In 1935-1941 and 1944-1946, Y. Rosenstein was the conductor of the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv Academic Opera and Ballet Theater of the Ukrainian SSR.
Under his direction, the first performances of numerous orchestral works by young composers of the time took place, including Kostyantyn Dankevych (Lileia, 1940) and others.
During the German-Soviet war, the theater company was evacuated from Ufa. In 1942, on the basis of the Kharkiv and Kyiv theaters, the united State Ukrainian Opera and Ballet Theater was created in Irkutsk, headed by director M. Smolych and conducted by Yakiv Rosenstein.
In 1944, he returned to liberated Kyiv, where he continued to work at the Kyiv Opera House.
Extreme living conditions and intensive work in the theater exhausted the artist's body. He died in 1946 at the age of 59 and was buried at the Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv.
