Leonid E. Gakkel
Graduated from the piano department of the Leningrad Conservatory (class of N. E. Perelman) and completed there his postgraduate studies (class of A. L. Barenboim). In 1961, he defended his candidate’s dissertation, “Features of piano style and interpretation of piano music by early Prokofiev (1909–1918),” and in 1979, his doctoral dissertation, “Béla Bartók and piano music of the 20th century.” Since 1983, he had been a professor of the Department of Special Piano and the Department of Theory, Criticism, and Practice of Musical Art at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Member of the Union of Composers, Chief Musicologist of the Mariinsky Theatre. Honored Artist of Russia, Academician of the Russian Academy of Humanities, Cavalier of the Order of Honor.
