N. N. Kirillov is a graduate of the V. A. Uspensky Republican Secondary Special Boarding Music School at the M. Ashrafi Tashkent State Conservatory, where he studied piano and bassoon.
In 1989 he completed his studies at the Military Conducting Faculty of the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory with a specialisation in Song and Dance Ensembles.
From 1989 to 1996 he served with the Kamchatka Flotilla of the Pacific Fleet, first as Deputy Head and, from 1993, as Artistic Director and Head of the Flotilla Ensemble.
From 1996 to 2003 he was Artistic Director and Head of the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Northern Fleet.
In 2003 he was appointed by order of the Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation as Deputy Artistic Director and Military Conductor of the Twice Red‑Bannered A. V. Alexandrov Academic Ensemble of Song and Dance of the Russian Army, becoming Head of the Ensemble’s Orchestra in 2004; since 2010 he has served as Principal Conductor.
From 2008 to 2011 he pursued an assistant‑traineeship at the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory in the Opera and Symphonic Conducting Faculty (class of People’s Artist of Russia, Professor V. A. Ponkin). He is the author of numerous transcriptions, orchestrations, arrangements, and adaptations for the Alexandrov Ensemble’s uniquely constituted orchestra and for various Moscow ensembles, including vocal and symphonic works, and has toured with the Ensemble in more than thirty countries.
In 2008 he was awarded the honorary title «Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation» and holds a number of state and departmental decorations.
