Boris Gienko

Boris Fyodorovich Gienko was born on 8 August 1917 in Vladikavkaz (the city was later renamed Ordzhonikidze), into the family of a leather craftsman. He began piano lessons at the age of six. In 1935 he moved to Tashkent and completed a course for leaders of amateur string orchestras at the Central House of Children's Art Education; his first attempts at composing date from the same time.

In 1936, the year the Tashkent State Conservatory opened, he became one of its first students and studied composition in the class of Boris Nadezhdin. While still a student he wrote songs and romances to poems by various poets and arranged Uzbek folk melodies for an orchestra of dutars. From 1938 he taught music theory at the children's music school attached to the Lenin Palace of Pioneers. He graduated in 1941, presenting his First Symphony as his diploma work.

During the Second World War he served in a cultural and propaganda brigade attached to the political directorate of the Turkestan Military District, writing patriotic songs, romances and orchestral pieces. He joined the Union of Composers of Uzbekistan in 1939 and was elected deputy chairman of its board in 1960. From 1945 to 1949 he conducted the orchestra of folk instruments of the Uzbek State Philharmonic.

From 1948 he taught instrumentation and score reading at the Tashkent Conservatory, from 1960 he ran a composition class, from 1972 to 1980 he headed the composition department, and from 1980 he was a professor. Among his pupils were the composers R. Abdullayev, M. Bafoyev, U. Musayev and Sayfi Jalil.

Chamber music holds a prominent place in his output: the string quartets and the piano quintet “Triptych” draw on the Uzbek musical tradition and on the composer's own material. His symphonic works include the “Khorezm Suite” (1951), the suite “Lyrical Pictures of Uzbekistan” (1954) and a symphony-ballad in memory of the 14 Turkestan commissars. He also wrote extensively for the orchestra of Uzbek folk instruments, drawing on the folk music of Uzbekistan, Central Asia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

In the theatre he created several music dramas in collaboration with G. Sabitov, D. Zakirov, F. Sadikov and D. Saatkulov, and with Zakirov wrote the ballet “Oynisa” (1956); he also composed music for plays and films.

Gienko was Honoured Art Worker of the Uzbek SSR (1968) and People's Artist of the Uzbek SSR (1988), a holder of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour and the Order of the Badge of Honour, and was awarded several medals; in 1996 he received the Shuhrat medal. He died in Tashkent on 18 September 2000 and was buried at the Botkin Cemetery.