Zlata Razdolina

Zlata Razdolina is a Russian Jewish composer, singer-songwriter and music performer. She is best known as being the author of the music for Requiem by Anna Akhmatova, The Song of the Murdered Jewish People by Itzhak Katzenelson, and hundreds of romances and songs based on poems by Russian classical poets, including Anna Akhmatova, Nikolay Gumilyov, Marina Tsvetayeva and Igor Severyanin. [1] Razdolina was born in 1954 in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). She started playing piano at the age of four and wrote her first composition when she was five. By the age of 17, her music was recorded and played on the radio, and she was accepted to the Leningrad Union of Artists. She started her career by performing in the musical organization "Lenconcert". She has received awards in many national and international music competitions. In 1988, she created the musical setting of Anna Akhmatova's poem "Requiem" which was later recognized as the best in an international competition. The "Requiem" was written for a symphony orchestra, choir and soloists. The composition was performed during the Anna Akhmatova centennial in the Kremlin in 1989, and later in Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic, USA, and Israel. [2] In 1990, she emigrated to Israel, where she continued her musical career. She performed together with singer Dudu Fisher on Israeli television. In 1997, she set to music the poem The Song of the Murdered Jewish People by Itzhak Katzenelson, a well known Holocaust poet. Katzenelson was trapped in the Warsaw ghetto, participated in the uprising, and was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. The composition was completed in 1997 and designed for symphony orchestra, choir and a soloist to be performed in Hebrew. [3] [4] [5] [6] Razdolina also wrote several novels and short stories, such as The Show is Over (1969), Nocturnal Voices (1974), and A Taste of Liberty (1987). She sang in a hoarse voice styled after the Russian bard Vladimir Vysotsky, self-accompanied on guitar, or occasionally a synthesizer. She had a repertoire of nearly 200 songs, of which some became hits and classics of Russian music. She also wrote songs for the theater and movies, such as "Mary Poppins", "Skates", "Sea Gates", "A Big Doctor's Tale", "Ali-Baba and 40 Songs of the Persian Bazaar", and songs for the children's show "Alarm Clock". [7] Razdolina died in Israel in an unknown year and cause. Her songs are still widely performed and appreciated by many people around the world.