Oleg Felzer scores and sound recordings

1960-1998

Oleg Felzer (1939-1998) was a Jewish composer from Azerbaijan who lived and worked in the Soviet Union before immigrating to New York City in 1988. Born in Baku, he graduated from the State Conservatory there (where he studied with Kara Kareyev), and from the Leningrad Conservatory. After teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, Felzer returned to Baku, where he became a professor of composition and music theory, and founded and conducted a chamber orchestra. His music was published by the Soviet state publisher, which went out of business after the collapse of the Soviet Union, making much of Felzer's early music unavailable.

Felzer became a figure of renown in Azerbaijan for being one of the first composers from that republic to employ modernist, avant-garde techniques. He also studied Mugham, the traditional music of Azerbaijan, and incorporated it into his music. His students at Baku Conservatory included Franghiz Ali-Zadeh and Faradzh Karayev (son of Kara), both highly-regarded composers.

Felzer was declared a dissident in the early 1970s for writing a musical, Woe From Wit, which was critical of the government. It became so popular that the production was halted by the state, and Felzer's salary was frozen and his movements restricted.

In 1988, after restrictions to travel outside the Soviet Union were relaxed, Felzer obtained a visa and moved to New York City, where he rebuilt his career. He found a job as an accompanist for the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and in 1989, his music was performed at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. Later, Felzer was hired as the choirmaster and music tutor at St. Ignatius Church in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The Continuum ensemble, under Joel Sachs, commissioned Vestige (1993), which won the Stoeger prize of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Interrupted Song (Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano), Felzer's final work (unfinished, but completed by Faradzh Karayev). Continuum began performing his work in the United States and abroad, as did the Gregg Smith Singers, the Nieuw Ensemble in Amsterdam, and other groups.

Felzer died of cancer in 1998. In the years after his death, Continuum continued to perform his music and produced first recordings for some pieces. His oeuvre includes solo pieces, piano and organ music, chamber music, works for chamber orchestra, full orchestral compositions, and choral and vocal pieces.