Mikhail S. Agin

After graduating with honors fr om the Batumi Music College (majoring in solo singing) and simultaneously completing his studies at a music school (majoring in piano), he spent three years as a student at the Music and Pedagogical Faculty of the Taganrog State Pedagogical Institute. 

He received his higher education at the Vocal Faculty of the Rostov State Rachmaninov Conservatory (1978, class of A. P. Belyaeva). 

Following his graduation fr om the Batumi Music College, he worked as a vocal soloist for various philharmonic societies and toured extensively throughout the country.

In 1973, while still a university student, he won the First Prize at the Competition of Young Performing Musicians.

Upon completing his full-time postgraduate studies at the Gnesin State Musical and Pedagogical Institute (now the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music) under the supervision of Doctor of Art History, Professor L. B. Dmitriev, he successfully defended his dissertation in 1983 and was awarded the degree of Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences (Ph. D. equivalent).

He began his teaching career in 1980 in Moscow at the State Correspondence Pedagogical Institute (now the Sholokhov Moscow State University for the Humanities), wh ere he headed the Vocal Department for several years. That same year, he began teaching at the Department of Solo Singing at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music.

Since 2002, he has held the rank of Professor at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music. Throughout his teaching career, he has trained 82 graduates who now successfully work in opera and musical theaters, as soloists for philharmonic societies and concert organizations, and as educators. Four of his students have been awarded the honorary titles of People’s Artist and Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, one graduate is an Honored Artist of the Republic of Abkhazia, more than half have become laureates of All-Russian and international vocal competitions and festivals, and many serve as faculty members in music colleges and universities.

Among his notable graduates-soloists of theaters and philharmonic societies, and laureates of international and All-Russian competitions are G. Kamenny, T. Khanenko, L. Erokhina, E. Boreyko, I. Chernov, I. Gureev, A. Danilov, K. Simonov, I. Kozhinov, M. Dyadichenko, O. Semenova, E. Olkhovskaya, Z. Aretova, S. Tarasov, S. Samoylov, L. Prosviryakova, L. Yuryeva, N. Asriyan, V. Fedotkin, O. Golovleva, I. Gadaeva, K. Eshba, E. Dolgasheva, T. Kryukov, E. Tarusova, Z. Kabardokova, Ganbold Enkhnaran, and others.

Concurrently with his work at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, M. S. Agin served for six years as a Professor-Consultant at the Department of Solo Singing at the Nizhny Novgorod State Glinka Conservatory. He has traveled to South Korea three times, wh ere he taught solo singing at the KBS Conservatory in Seoul; he has also conducted masterclasses in France and the People’s Republic of China.

M. S. Agin is actively engaged in extensive scientific, methodological, and research work. He is the author of 195 published works (books, articles, curricula, teaching aids, music collections, anthologies of vocal-pedagogical repertoire, etc.).

Among them are:

• Agin M. S. Vocal Encyclopedic Dictionary in 5 volumes. Moscow, 1993-1995 (in 1996, the newspaper Musical Review named it the best book of the year in the world of music; the dictionary is currently available online);
• «Some Aspects of the Formation and Development of World Vocal Art» // National Vocal Schools of Russia: Methodological Recommendations. Moscow — Cheboksary: Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, 2001;
• «The Nature of the Singing Voice and Its Features» // Vocal Education at the Beginning of the 21st Century. Proceedings of the scientific and practical conference dedicated to the fifth anniversary of the Vocal Faculty of the Moscow State University of Culture and Arts (MSUKI). Moscow, 2004, pp. 46-56;
• Agin M. S. The Vocal School of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music (2004, monograph);
• Agin M. S. Fundamentals of Vocal Methodology: Exemplary Curriculum. Moscow, 2004;
• Agin M. S. Vocal Repertoire Encyclopedia: Arias. Moscow, 2007, 2019;
• Agin M. S. Vocal Repertoire Encyclopedia: Romances and Songs. Moscow, 2007;
• Agin M. S. «On the Role of the Falsetto-Mixed Singing Manner in the Formation of Mixed Voice Production» // Issues of Vocal Education. Moscow, 2007, pp. 114-125;
• Agin M. S. «On the Connection Between Theory and Practice in Vocal Pedagogy» // Modern Problems of Higher School Music Pedagogy, Issue III. Moscow, 2008, pp. 27-34;
• Agin M. S. «Main Voice Defects and Their Causes (From Pedagogical Experience)» // Vocal Education at the Beginning of the 21st Century: Proceedings of the International Scientific and Practical Conference of the Vocal Department of the Institute of Music, Issue 6. Moscow, 2009;
• Agin M. S. Masters of Vocal Art (2010) [book];
• Agin M. S. «Development of Vocal Technique» // Voice and Speech, 2010, No. 2 (2), pp. 29-37;
• Agin M. S. «The Modern System of Vocal Education: Goals and Objectives» // Issues of Vocal Education. Moscow — Voronezh, 2011, pp. 3-10;
• Agin M. S. «On the Standard of Singing Voice Quality» // Issues of Vocal Education. Moscow — St. Petersburg, 2012, pp. 39-45;
• Agin M. S. «On Pronunciation in Singing» // Issues of Vocal Education. Moscow — St. Petersburg, 2012, pp. 39-45;
• Agin M. S. Main shortcomings of the singing voice and speech and ways to overcome them (from pedagogical experience) // Professional training of vocalists: problems, experience, prospects. Collection of scientific papers. Iss. 4. Moscow, 2012. pp. 71-84;
• Agin M. S. On the work of breathing in singing // Issues of vocal education. Moscow — St. Petersburg, 2013. pp. 41-48;
• Agin M. S. Professional training of a modern opera singer in secondary and higher educational institutions // Scholarly Notes of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music. 2013. No. 4 (7). pp. 81-89;
• Agin M. S. «Leading vocal pedagogues of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music», dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music. (2014, monograph);
• Agin M. S. Development of the singing voice (theory and practice). Moscow, 2015, 2021. (Textbook);
• Agin M. S. Support of sound as the basis of voice production // Issues of vocal education. Iss. 44. Moscow — St. Petersburg, 2017. pp. 187-194;
• Agin M. S. Muscular, resonator, and respiratory sensations // Voice-saving technologies: clinical, hygienic, and pedagogical aspects // Collection of works. Moscow, 2017. pp. 5-9;
• Agin M. S. A. P. Zdanovich «Some questions of vocal methodology». Dialogues with the master // Pages of the history of scientific and creative schools of the Rostov Conservatory. Dialogue of generations. Rostov-on-Don, 2017. pp. 254-263;
• Agin M. S. Support of sound as the basis of voice production // Issues of vocal education. Moscow — St. Petersburg, 2017. pp. 187-194;
• Agin M. S. Scientific and pedagogical views of Professor L. B. Dmitriev (To the 100th anniversary of his birth) // Prospects for the development of vocal education. Moscow, 2017. pp. 54-66;
• Agin M. S. The creative path of the great chamber singer Zara Alexandrovna Dolukhanova (to the 100th anniversary of her birth) // Issues of vocal education. Moscow — St. Petersburg, 2018. pp. 80-87;
• Agin M. S. «...There is something regal in the sonority of the voice» (to the 80th anniversary of I. P. Bogacheva) // Issues of vocal education. Moscow — St. Petersburg, 2019. pp. 18-24;
• Agin M. S. The problem of educating an opera singer // Opera in musical theater: History and modernity. Vol. 3. Moscow, 2019. pp. 127-137;
• Agin M. S. From the history of the development of Russian opera art // Issues of vocal education. Collection of scientific papers. Moscow — St. Petersburg, 2020. pp. 109-119;
• Agin M. S. Pedagogical activity of Professor G. G. Aden (Memoirs of a student) // Gnesin pedagogical schools: history and modernity. Moscow, 2020. pp. 85-97;
• Agin M. S. The work of the larynx in singing // Issues of vocal education. Moscow — St. Petersburg, 2021. pp. 70-77;
• Agin M. S. Pedagogical Ideas and Principles of N. I. Speransky // Gnesin Pedagogical Schools: History and Modernity. Moscow, 2022. pp. 177-187;
• Agin M. S. The Chaliapin Phenomenon and Vocal Art of the 21st Century (to the 150th Anniversary of his Birth) // Issues of Vocal Education. Collection of Scientific Papers. — Moscow — St. Petersburg, 2023. pp. 3-18;
• Agin M. S. The Singing Voice as a Barometer of Human Spiritual and Mental Life // Issues of Vocal Education. Collection of Scientific Papers. — Moscow — St. Petersburg, 2023. pp. 88-105;
• Agin M. S. The Significance of Tempo-Rhythm in the Singing Process // Issues of Vocal Education. Collection of Scientific Papers. — Moscow — St. Petersburg, 2023. pp. 138-150. 

Professor M. S. Agin is the author, compiler, and editor of 42 scientific and methodological collections.

Among them are:

• «Perspectives on the Development of Vocal Education»;
• «Training the Professional Singer»;
• «Issues of Vocal Education» (some issues were prepared in collaboration with prominent musical figures, including L. Dmitriev, N. Shpiller, A. Alekseev, A. Malinkovskaya, L. Yaroslavtseva, Yu. Barsov, and others).

Since 1980, M. S. Agin has been a member of the Council for Vocal Art under the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. During this time, he has organized and conducted 25 All-Russian scientific and methodological conferences (serving as the author and compiler of the collections of materials from these vocal conferences). He regularly speaks at various vocal-methodological conferences and meetings, conducts masterclasses and open lessons (in Russia, Korea, Finland, China, etc.), and provides methodological support.

For many years, Professor M. S. Agin has been annually invited to serve as the Chairman of the State Examination Commissions at various conservatories (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Saratov, Cheboksary, Ufa, Astrakhan, Kazan, Petrozavodsk, Vladivostok, Krasnodar, etc.) and has repeatedly served on State Attestation Commissions for the evaluation of conservatories and music colleges. 

He has served over 100 times as a jury member and chairman for numerous international and all-Russian vocal competitions and festivals held in Italy, Finland, and Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Nalchik, Vladimir, Volgograd, Cheboksary, Vladivostok, and other cities and countries).

M. S. Agin is the organizer of the Natalia Shpiller International Vocalists Competition «Masterpieces of Russian Music», which has been held annually since 2014 at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music.

The department holds annual conferences and seminars for educators in Moscow and the Moscow Region, as well as the internal university competition «Victory Day».

As the author of the «Masters of Vocal Art» project, M. S. Agin spent several years introducing Muscovites to the masters of vocal art, including outstanding singers and faculty members of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music’s Solo Singing Department (A. Eizen, Z. Dolukhanova, N. Shpiller, G. Oleinichenko, E. Belov, N. Yureneva, S. Khromchenko, and others). The project’s motto is: «Our innovations are in our traditions». 

M. S. Agin has served as the Executive Secretary of the Council for Vocal Education under the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation since 1980. Since 1996, he has been a member of the Presidium of the Russian Public Academy of Voice and was one of the founders of the interdisciplinary scientific and practical journal Voice and Speech.

In 2014, Professor M. S. Agin became a member of the Coordination Council for Music Education under the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.

Since 2022, he has served as Co-Chairman of the Council for Vocal Art of the Russian Federation. 

In 2017, he was awarded a Diploma by the International Union of Musical Figures for his outstanding contribution to the development of musical art.