Sergey Dorensky

Sergey Leonidovich Dorensky (3 December 1931, Moscow – 26 February 2020, Moscow) was a Soviet and Russian pianist and music educator, closely associated with the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He was named Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1966 and People’s Artist of the RSFSR in 1988.

From the 1940s to the 1950s he studied at the Central Music School with Grigory Ginzburg, and in 1955 he graduated with honors from Ginzburg’s class at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory; he completed his postgraduate studies there in 1957. Dorensky won first prize and a gold medal at the 5th World Festival of Youth and Students in Warsaw (1955) and received second prize at the International Piano Competition in Rio de Janeiro (1957).

Beginning in 1957 he taught at the Moscow Conservatory, becoming a professor in 1979. In 1978 he was elected dean of the piano faculty and served in that role for almost 20 years, while also heading the department of special piano (1994–1997); in 2007 he again led the department of special piano. Many of his students became laureates of major international competitions, including Ivari Ilja, Nikolai Lugansky, Denis Matsuev, Vadim Rudenko, Pavel Nersessian, Alexander Shtarkman, Stanislav Bunin, and Olga Kern; Lugansky emphasized Dorensky’s approach of helping each student reveal their own artistic individuality rather than imposing the teacher’s personality.

Dorensky was an honorary professor of the Ufa State Academy of Arts (2003) and a full member (academician) of the Russian Academy of Creativity. He received major state and international honors including the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland” (4th class, 2007; 3rd class, 2011), the Order of Friendship (1997), the Medal “In Commemoration of the 850th Anniversary of Moscow” (1997), and Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun (3rd class, 2015), as well as cultural distinctions from Poland and Kazakhstan. After his death in 2020, a farewell took place at the Moscow Conservatory and he was buried at Vvedenskoye Cemetery in Moscow; among his recordings noted in the source are an album of Chopin Mazurkas (1974) and “Rhapsody in Jazz Style” (1982).

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