Haieff, Alexei, 1914-1994

Composed 1949-50. First performance of revised version Boston, 31 October 1952, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch conductor, Leo Smit soloist. Dedicated to Janice Newman for Leo Smit. Received the New York Music Critics Award for 1952.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

From the description of Concerto for piano and orchestra / Alexei Haieff. [19--] (Franklin & Marshall College). WorldCat record id: 52137728

Alexei Haieff was born in Blagoveshchensk, Siberia, on August 25, 1914. He received his primary education at Harbin, Manchuria, China. He emigrated to the United States in 1931, first studying privately with Constantin Schwedoff (1933-34) and then at Juilliard School of Music (1934-38) with Rubin Goldmark and Frederick Jacobi. During 1938-40 he studied with Nadia Boulanger in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Paris.

In addition to composing and teaching privately, Haieff was an accompanist to singer Olga Averino (1938-40), and led the Woody Herman Orchestra on tour in 1946. He received Guggenheim fellowships in 1946 and 1949, won a prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1946, and was a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome from 1947-48. In an article that appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine of March 14, 1948 (located in Series 5, box 1, folder 6), Aaron Copland remarked that Haieff not only had a strong affinity with the music of Stravinsky but was a close personal friend as well. In 1952, the New York Music Critics Circle cited three works, among them Haieff's Piano Concerto, as one of the best musical compositions for that year.

Haieff was composer-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome (1952-53), was a professor at the University of Buffalo (1962-68), and was composer-in-residence at the University of Utah from (1968-70). In the last years of his life, he and his wife Sheila, lived in Italy.

Alexei Haieff died on March 1, 1994.

From the guide to the Alexei Haieff papers, circa 1900-1985, (The New York Public Library. Music Division.)