Yvar-Emilian Mikhashoff was born Ronald McKay in Troy, near Albany, New York in 1941. He began piano studies with Betty Weir and Stanley Hummel in Albany. Mikhashoff studied at the Eastman School of Music in 1959 and in the 1961 academic year, he studied piano at the Juilliard School in New York City. He also had a career as a ballroom dancer from 1962-1965. In 1964 Mikhashoff entered the University of Houston, where he earned a B.M. in 1967 and a M.M in composition in 1968.
Receiving a Fulbright scholarship, he studied the music of the French Impressionists with Nadia Boulanger. After his return to the United States, Mikhashoff earned a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in August 1973. In the Fall of 1973 Mikhashoff was appointed Assistant Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Based in Buffalo until his death in 1993, Mikhashoff had an international performing career which led him to promote new music and American music around the world.
In 1982 Mikhashoff had finished a project of commissioned piano pieces, The Buffalo Piano Collection, and was inspired to create a new project. Mikhashoff collaborated with the publishing firm Quadrivium Press, whose contact was Ed Snider, to commission composers from all over the world to write piano pieces based on a dance form, the tango. Mikhashoff's brief but rewarding career as a ballroom dancer was the impetus for centering the project on the tango and composers were enthusiastic to contribute to this collection. Eighty-eight tangos by composers from 30 countries were officially premiered on April 14, 1985 at the North American New Music Festival. Mikhashoff toured internationally performing the tangos and to this date the collection totals 127 tangos for solo piano. It was intended that the tangos be published in a multi-volume set by Quadrivium Press. However, the publication was never issued.
| July 2005 Music Library Staff musique@acsu.buffalo.edu http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/music/spcoll/mikhashoff/tangos/bio.html |
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