Tchaikovsky
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Fedor Bekker

Fedor Fedorovich Bekker or Becker (Федор Федорович Беккер) was a Russian baritone and choirmaster, born in 1851.

In 1880 he graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, and became assistant to the director of the Mariinskii Theatre Opera Company in 1892, having already attained the position of second soloist in the Saint Petersburg Opera, and singing instructor in the Aleksandrovskii Military Academy. He was actively involved in the field of music education, and in 1887 he began to organise open choral concerts of operatic and religious music. In 1890, together with Ivan Melnikov, he founded Free Choral Classes in the Russian Capital.

It was at Bekker's request that in 1889 Tchaikovsky wrote the chorus The Nightingale, and made a choral arrangement of his song Legend (No. 5 from the Sixteen Songs for Children, Op. 54). Bekker was also the first to conduct the Three Choruses (1891), which were premiered by his students in Saint Petersburg.

Fedor Bekker died in 1901.