Prof. Alexander Vitlin

Prof. Alexander Vitlin was born in St. Petersburg and received his first piano lessons at the age of four. Three years later he was accepted into the preparatory school for gifted children at the Rimsky-Korsakov Music Academy in Leningrad. In 1968 he took part in a seminar under the direction of Herbert von Karajan in the Leningrad Philharmonic Hall. In the following year he took conducting as his second main subject and took on the direction of the school orchestra and choir. Many public concerts and radio and TV recordings followed. From 1974-79 he studied at the Rimsky-Korsakov Music Academy in Leningrad with Prof. Iljy Mussin and Prof. Vladimir Nielssen and in 1977 he won the nationwide Russian piano competition. From 1979-81, during his military service, he was conductor of a brass band. From 1981-85 he was a tutor of conducting and piano at the Music Academy in Krassnojarsk. During this time he performed regularly as pianist and conductor in Tallinn, Riga, Kiev, Alma-Ata, Novosibirsk and other cities in the former USSR. In 1982 he won the nationwide Russian conducting competition. As musical director of the theatre in Chabarovsk he undertook concert tours until 1988 and continued to give concerts in the same post at the State theatre in Irkutsk from 1988-90. In 1990 Alexander Vitlin moved to Israel and became lecturer in piano and accompanying at the music academy in Tel-Aviv as well as at the music academy in Jerusalem. In 1992 he moved to Germany, where he became musical assistant at the Komische Oper in Berlin, and from 1993-95 he performed regularly as guest conductor in operas and concerts at the Mittelsächsisches Theater and the Philharmonic Hall. In 1994 Alexander Vitlin was appointed Professor of Accompanying at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler Berlin. Since 2004 he has taught orchestral conducting at the Academy of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig.