Nikolai Peiko

Nikolai Ivanovich Peiko (1916–1995) was a Russian composer and professor of composition. Peiko began his music education at the Academic Music College, followed by three years of training at the Moscow Conservatory where his teachers included Nikolay Myaskovsky (composition), Nikolai Rakov (orchestration), and Zukkerman (analysis). He graduated in 1940. Peiko taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1942 to 1949. After working since 1941–1943 in Ufa at a military hospital, Nikolai partly worked with and was influenced by Dmitri Shostakovich. From 1959 till retirement Peiko was professor of composition at the Gnessin State Musical College where his students included Sofia Gubaidulina, Alexander Arutiunian, and Inna Abramovna Zhvanetskaia. Peiko taught his students twelve-tone technique. Nikolai Peiko was more of a traditional composer who absorbed folk music in his musical language. His music is known for a harsh, distant sound. His music has been described as driving march-rhythms with good humor, decorated with the sound of bells. In 1964 he was honored as a Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR. He began working with 12-note scales in the 1960s. In 2012, he performed in the Irish-Russian chamber-music festival in Moscow.