Nikolai Lopatnikoff (Russian, Николай Львович Лопатников; born 16 March 1903 in Tallinn - 7 October 1976 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) was a Russian-American composer, music teacher and university lecturer.
Lopatnikoff studied music theory and piano at the Conservatory of St. Petersburg, until he fled the Russian Revolution with his family in 1917, landing in Helsinki, Finland.
Aaron Copland, who heard this performance on 16 July 1927, acquainted Sergei Koussevitzky aware of it and so initiated a contact that would be decisive for Lopatnikoff's future.
As a result, a long-standing connection between the two came about, which led to the premier of numerous Lopatnikoff works by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
He served as a professor of composition at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut, the Westchester Conservatory of Music in White Plains, New York and ultimately at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now called Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.