Sergey Nikitin (musician)

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Sergey Nikitin (musician) : biography

March 8, 1944 –

Sergey Yakovlevich Nikitin ( born March 8, 1944) is a prominent Soviet and Russian bard, composer, and biophysicist. He performs both solo and in a duet with his wife, Tatyana Nikitina all over Russia, the former Soviet republics, and other countries with significant Russian-speaking diaspora. Sergey Nikitin is also known as a composer and performer of songs for children.

Biography

Sergey Nikitin graduated from the Physics Department of Moscow State University in 1968. After completing postgraduate studies at the department of Biophysics at Moscow State University, he worked as a researcher in Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry in Moscow (1971-1980). In 1980-1987 he was a researcher at the Institute of Biophysics in Pushchino and received a Ph.D. in Physics in 1983.

Sergey Nikitin wrote music to his first song, En route (lyrics by Iosif Utkin), in 1962. In 1963, he founded an all-male quartet in the Department of Physics at Moscow State University, together with Sergey Smirnov, Boris Geller, Aleksei Monakhov, and later Vadim Khait.

In 1968-1977, he appeared at numerous concerts, together with other members of his quintet, including his wife, Tatyana Nikitina, Carmen Santacreu, Vladimir Ulin, and Nikolai Turkin. In 1987-1995, he was Musical Director at the Oleg Tabakov Studio-Theater in Moscow, and became a full-time singer and composer since 1995.

Nikitin has two older sisters, and one adult son, Alexander, who sometimes performs in concerts with Sergey and Tatiana.

Works

  • CDs
    • , quintet of the Department of Physics in Moscow State University
    • ("Под музыку Вивальди"), 1994
    • , 1994
    • A Big Secret for a Small Company ("Большой секрет для маленькой компании"), 1995
    • Yesterday the Crocodile smiled, 1995
    • , songs for children on verses by Yunna Morits
    • (Sergey Nikitin’s songs on verses by Dmitry Sukharev cf. Brichmulla), 1996
    • ("Часовые любви", The Nikitins sing Bulat Okudzhava’s songs)
    • , 1998
    • , 1998
    • The Girl and the Plasticine, 1998
    • (Sergey Nikitin’s songs to the verses of Yevgeny Yevtushenko), 1999
    • , 2000
    • (Sergey Nikitin and Pyotr Todorovsky)
    • , 2002
    • , 2002
  • Soundtracks to live-action films:
    • Almost a laughable story
    • Trips in an old car
    • Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears
    • Irony of Fate, – a song from the film, lyrics by Boris Pasternak, music and performance by Nikitin, English subtitles by V. Chetin
    • Old New Year
  • Soundtracks to animated films:
    • (1979)
    • (1981)
    • (1982)
  • Music for the theater
    • Mary Poppins, a collaboration with Viktor Berkovsky
    • Ali Baba and 40 songs of Persian Bazaar a collaboration with Viktor Berkovsky, libretto by Veniamin Smekhov
    • Opera Why are you wearing tails (based on a vaudeville by Anton Chekhov the Proposal)
    • and many others

Awards

  • 1980 The movie Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears for which Sergey Nikitin wrote the music received an Oscar in the ‘best foreign film’ category.
  • In 1997, Sergey Nikitin was awarded the title of the Meritorious Actor of Russia and, together with Tatiana Nikitina, became a laureate of the Tzarsko-Selsky Artistic Prize.