Celtic Cossack Connections

Rita McAllister (Artistic Director, Celtic-Cossack Connections)

Rita McAllister was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland. She undertook her undergraduate studies at the University of Glasgow, graduating BMus with first class honours. At the same time she was a part-time student at the RSAMD studying piano with Wight Henderson and viola with Frieda Peters. She studied composition with Anthony Hedges and Robin Orr and won the first BBC Scotland Young Composer’s prize in 1966.

In the late 60’s she spent three years at the University of Cambridge researching the operas of Sergei Prokofiev; she completed her PhD in 1970. Her work on Prokofiev resulted in intensive work in Moscow, St Petersburg and throughout the southern USSR. In the 70s and 80s she broadcast and published extensively on many aspects of Soviet and Russian music. Her compositions from this time include chamber works, song cycles and works for music theatre, as well as electroacoustic pieces.

From 1969 she was a lecturer in the Faculty of Music at the University of Edinburgh, teaching composition, twentieth-century history and analysis, and established the electronic and recording studios there. She was appointed Director of Music at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 1986, and from 1996 to 2006 she was additionally Vice-Principal of the Academy. She has held a number of important appointments in music and education with national bodies in the UK. She continues to research, write and compose, and is the instigator and Artistic Director of Celtic-Cossack Connections.

Professor Alexander Silitsky, (Dept of Publishing and Information, Rostov State Rakhmaninov Conservatoire)

Graduate of Rostov Conservatory; Doctor of Arts; editor of Rostov Musical Review; Head of Department of Publishing and Information. Author of Nikolai Karetnikov: Choice of Fate (Rostov, 1997); Don Cossack Songs in Historical Development (Rostov, 2004); Lia Yakovlevna Khinchin: Life, Personality, Work (Rostov, 2005).

Professor Anatole Tsuker, (Dept of History of Music, Rostov State Rakhmaninov Conservatoire)

Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation; graduate of Rostov Conservatory; Doctor of Arts; Pro-Rektor for Research and Concert Activities; Head of Department of History of Music. Author of N.P,Rakov: An Essay on his Life and Work (Moscow, 1979); Mikael Tariverdiev (Moscow, 1985); (along with Alexander Silitsky) Grigory Freed: the Path of an Artist (Moscow, 1990); Fate and the Symphony (Moscow, 1993); and a book of articles, The Single World of Music (Rostov, 2003).

Timothy Dean (Head of Opera, RSAMD)

Timothy Dean studied music at Reading University, and then piano and conducting at the Royal College of Music. He then became Chorus Master and Head of Music for Kent Opera where he worked for ten years, conducting a wide repertoire on tour in the UK and abroad, including a cycle of the Britten Church Parables performed at a number of UK festivals in the 1990s. In 1987 he was appointed the first Music Director of British Youth Opera. Since then he has been instrumental in developing the company into a vital part of the national infrastructure for training young singers and musicians to an advanced level, as well as conducting over twenty productions and many concerts for the company. He was also conductor of the London Bach Society in the late 1980s, following the death of Dr Paul Steinitz, and was Music Director of The Opera Company from 1990 – 1994.

In 1990 he spent a year as Assistant Music Director and Chorus Master with the New D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, conducting on tour in the UK and USA, after which he made company debuts for English National Opera (Oedipus Rex/Bluebeard’s Castle) and Scottish Opera (Barber of Seville).

In 1994 he was appointed Head of Opera at the RSAMD in Glasgow, in charge of new postgraduate courses in opera training for singers and repetiteurs. Since moving to Scotland, he has also worked with the RSNO, the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, The Paragon Ensemble, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and Edinburgh Choral Union, as well as giving concerts with the Symphony Orchestras of both the Junior and Senior Academy, conducting over twenty-five opera productions in Glasgow and Edinburgh. From 2000 - 2006 he was Artistic Director of British Youth Opera, of which he is now a Vice-President. He has recently been appointed as Chorus Director to the RSNO and continues to be active as a coach, accompanist and conductor.

From associated institutions:

• Alex Reedijk, General Manager, Scottish Opera
• Vyacheslav Kushchov, Artistic Director, Rostov State Musical Theatre
• Julia Cherner-Atlas, Director, Russian Cultural Centre, Glasgow
• Aram Rustamyan, Director, Rostov Jazz School