Edvard Tchivzhel

He graduated from the prestigious Leningrad Conservatory, which produced notable alumni such as Jascha Heifetz, Mariss Jansons, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Dmitri Shostakovich, Vladimir Sofronitsky, Yuri Temirkanov, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, with degrees in piano and conducting.

He served as associate conductor of the USSR State Symphony Orchestra, led by Evgeny Svetlanov.

To insure that he would have a better chance at receiving political asylum, a local attorney arranged for him to make uncomplimentary public comments about the Soviet Union to an obscure agricultural newsletter.

When the symphony left from its last stop in Washington, D.C., to return to Moscow, Tchivzel was whisked away by armed FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Services agents.

In 1986, he became the chief conductor of the Umeå Sinfonietta, Sweden, and frequently performed with the symphony orchestras of Helsinborg, Malmö and Norrköping.