BIOGRAPHY
People’s Artist of Russia, two-time winner of the Russian Federation National Award, Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation
David Tukhmanov was born on July 20th, 1940, in Moscow. His father, Fyodor Davidovich Tukhmanov (1903), was an engineer, and his mother, Vera Anatolyevna Karasyova (1903), was a music teacher and composer.
David Tukhmanov took to music at an early age, and it was his mother who gave him his first piano lessons. He then entered the Moscow Gnessin School of Music where he continued to study piano. His first teacher there was Elena Efrussi.
Elena Fabianovna Gnessina, an eminent Russian and Soviet composer and music educator, encouraged David to maintain his interest in composition, and she had a significant influence on his choice of professional pursuit. His first compositions were pieces for piano and vocal works, romances and ballads. In his seventh year at the Moscow Gnessin School of Music, he devoted himself entirely to composition and the theory of music. His tutor was Lev Nikolayevich Naumov, a renowned pianist, composer and educator.
In 1958, after graduating from the Moscow Gnessin School of Music, David Tukhmanov continued his studies at the composition faculty of the Gnessin Academy of Music in Moscow where his teachers were F.E. Vitachek and later A. Chugaev. He graduated from the Academy in 1963.
