Marking the 80^th birthday of Professor Leonid Gakkel

On 27 January one of the longest-serving employees of the Mariinsky Theatre Professor Leonid Yevgenievich Gakkel, Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation and Doctor of the History of Art, will celebrate his eightieth birthday.

A St Petersburg intellectual for many years, Leonid Gakkel may be regarded as the ideal embodiment of that now rare human type that is increasingly vanishing into the annals of history and literature. At the St Petersburg Conservatoire colleagues and students meet with this respected and strict professor of piano, the author of brilliant educational courses in the history of piano performance, a dissertation research director and member of the Academic Council. The reading public – professionals and music-lovers – highly regard his wonderful books, among them The Piano Music of Sergei Prokofiev  (1960), Piano Music of the 20^th Century (1976, 2^nd edition published in 1990), Theatre Square: Essays (1990), The Magnificence of Performance: Maria Yudina and Vladimir Sofronitsky (1995) and December Lectures (1991, 2^nd edition published in 2010) among others.

Mariinsky Theatre audiences like him as a lecturer, author and presenter of three subscriptions. At the Concert Hall Leonid Gakkel engagingly speaks of some well-known works – the series is called Masterpieces for All Times – and after his lectures it is as if the audience’s perceptions have changed. At the Shchedrin Hall he reads lectures about the great performers of the Mariinsky/Kirov Theatre, he preserves their “Living Memory” and at the Prokofiev Hall he runs The Silver Thread featuring famous names and dates from the history of music. Gakkel has written lengthy and artistically expressive annotations for discs released on the Mariinsky label. Assembled together in one volume, they comprise the contents of his latest book And Then It Will Resound, the presentation of which will take place on 7 February 2016 at the Prokofiev Hall.

Able to engage with any audience, Leonid Gakkel is used to appearing on radio and TV. His knowledge is boundless, and the way he interacts with the audience is unparalleled. Everyone at the Mariinsky Theatre together with its Artistic and General Director Valery Gergiev congratulate Leonid Gakkel on his birthday.