The Composers' House in Ivanovo

Their goal was to help Soviet composers during these difficult years and to give them the opportunity to continue to do creative work while ensuring basic living conditions, at least during the summer months.

The Composers' House is located on the current outskirts of the city of Ivanovo (Ivanovo Oblast), Russia, about 9 km from the city center, and about 250 km north-east of Moscow, on the former estate of land owner A. Stefan, a relative of Baroness Nadezhda von Meck, in (what used to be) a very secluded and quiet area near the small river Kharinka, bordered by spacious fields and a beautiful little forest of centuries-old oaks and birches (nicknamed "Prokofiev's grove" by composers who find it especially inspiring).

An important source for the information below, especially the names of composers who came after World War II to Ivanovo, comes from the introductory text inside a booklet about a festival held in 1997.

[3] Invited composers lived in separate, comfortable, one or two bedroom country cottages (dacha in Russian), each fully equipped with modern amenities (water, electricity).

[2] During and after World War II The House of Creativity continued to serve as a favorite place to work and to rest for several generations of composers and musicologists.

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev and his wife Mira Aleksandrovna Mendel'son-Prokofieva[12][13] spent about three months at Ivanovo during the summers of 1944 and 1945 to escape the constraints of wartime Moscow.

In subsequent years the workshops were directed by such great musicians and teachers as N.A.Timofeev, N. Ivanov-Radkevich, S. Ryauzov, G. Frid, Y. Kreyn, N. Peyko, and R. Bunin.

Among the composers participating in these workshops were T. Shkerbina, E. Lebedeva, L. Rodionova, Tatiana A. Gordeeva, O. Paiberdin, S. Patromansky, O. Zarodnuk, B. Dondokov, A. Pavluchuk, A. Zelenskiy, N. Miroshnichenko, L. Terskaya, M. Shmotova, B. Filanovsky, D. Yanov-Yanovsky (Uzbekistan), V. Abaeva (Turkmenistan), G. Grigorjeva (Estonia), M. Gribinchik, R. Kronlaks (Latvia), A. Gavrilets (Ukraine) and many others.

[citation needed][17] The workshops at the Creative House were fertile ground for the development of new musical ideas by composers such as E. Rakhmadiyev, B. Yampilov, O. Krasotov, A. Melikov, A. Rzaev, P. Rivilis, V. Tormis, S. Cortes, D. Smolsky, Dilorom Saidaminova, S. Belimov, A. Terterian, S. Berinsky, V. Lobanov, A. Luppov, A. Boyarsky and others.

The Union, through its Music Foundation, is also responsible for the preservation of the extensive collection of workshop material, scores and audio recordings of composers from all over the world.