[2] His father knew Sergei Rachmaninoff and had been asked by the composer to assemble the choir for the 1927 world premiere of his Three Russian Folk Songs, Op.
Igor attended the rehearsals for the premiere and was told by his father that the conductor, Leopold Stokowski, had his own ideas about the tempo for the final song and refused to obey Rachmaninoff's wishes.
[1] His education was at the University of Kansas 1931-32, the Juilliard School in New York 1935-41, and the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music.
In 1940 he contributed a scholarly article on Russian chant to Gustave Reese's Music in the Middle Ages.
[7] With that organisation he also led the U.S. premieres of Carl Nielsen's Maskarade and Werner Egk's Betrothal in San Domingo.
At the request of Sophie Satin, Rachmaninoff's sister-in-law,[8] Igor Buketoff orchestrated Act I of Rachmaninoff's unfinished opera Monna Vanna, which was premiered in a concert performance at Saratoga Springs, New York, on 11 August 1984, with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
[2] Buketoff also recorded the work with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, again with Sherrill Milnes, but other singers sang the other roles.
He didn't follow the Eastern Orthodox tradition of his family; he was a lifetime member at St. James' Episcopal Church (New York City).