Nikolai Kapustin

Kapustin died on July 2, 2020, in Moscow. He was 82 years old.

Kapustin was born in Horlivka, Ukraine. When he was age four, with his father fighting in World War II, his mother and grandmother moved with him and his sister to the Kyrgyz city of Tokmak. He composed his first piano sonata at age 13. From age 14, Kapustin studied piano with Avrelian Rubakh (a pupil of Felix Blumenfeld, who also taught Simon Barere and Vladimir Horowitz). Beginning in 1954, he discovered jazz. His teacher supported his interest. Kapustin studied from 1956 with Alexander Goldenweiser at the Moscow Conservatory, graduating in 1961. He included Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 in his graduation recital.

During the 1950s, Kapustin acquired a reputation as a jazz pianist, arranger and composer. He had his own quintet, which performed at an "upscale restaurant" monthly. He played as a member of Yury Saulsky's big band and later in the Oleg Lundstrem Orchestra. In his compositions, he fused the traditions of both classical piano repertoire and improvisational jazz, combining jazz idioms and classical music structures. His Suite in the Old Style, Op. 28, written in 1977, sounds like jazz improvisation but is modeled after Baroque suites such as Johann Sebastian Bach's keyboard partitas. Other examples of his fusion music are 24 Preludes in Jazz Style, Op. 53, 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 82, written in 1997, and the Sonatina, Op. 100.

Nikolai Girshevich Kapustin (Russian: Никола́й Ги́ршевич Капу́стин Russian pronunciation: [kɐˈpustʲɪn]; 22 November 1937 – 2 July 2020) was a Soviet composer and pianist of Russian-Jewish descent. He played with early Soviet jazz bands such as the Oleg Lundstrem Orchestra. In his compositions, mostly for piano, he used a fusion of jazz and classical forms. He and other pianists recorded his works.