Irina P. Shekhovtsova

Researcher, teacher, musical educator.

She graduated from the Gnesin State Music and Pedagogical Institute (now the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music) in 1993 and completed her postgraduate studies there in 1997 (supervisors: Candidates of Art Studies S. P. Kravchenko and N. V. Zabolotnaya). She defended her Candidate dissertation on the topic «Traditions of Greek Rhetoric in Byzantine Hymnographic Art (Based on Singing Manuscripts of the Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries)» in 1997. Since 1994 she has worked at the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music.

She headed the postgraduate department of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music from 2007 to 2014 and for many years was a staff member of the Elena F. Gnesina Memorial Museum‑Apartment. She is currently Head of the Scholarly‑Archaeographic Council of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music.

Since 2015 she has given a special course in the history of church singing at Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University for the Humanities. Since 2000 she has been an active church choirmaster. From 1999 to 2006 she taught music‑theoretical disciplines at the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus (Syria).

Her scholarly and creative interests include sacred music; Byzantine and Old Russian liturgical chant; the history of Russian musical culture; archival studies; source studies; general and musical palaeography; musical medieval studies; and the music of contemporary Russian composers.

She is a member of the international scholarly Verein zur Erforschung der Monodie (Society for the Study of Monody, Vienna, Austria).

Since 2007 she has studied Greek musical manuscripts of the ninth to nineteenth centuries held in Russian collections and has taken part in a nationwide project bringing together mediaevalists from the Institute of Russian Literature (Russian Academy of Sciences), the St. Petersburg Rimsky‑Korsakov State Conservatory, the Russian National Library, and the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music to catalogue musical monuments of the Eastern Christian tradition.

Among her graduates are Karun Bakhbudaryan (teacher of music theory at the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus), Alexandra Trushechkina (lecturer‑musicologist at the Tula State Philharmonic), and Maria Pigulevskaya (research fellow at the Russian National Museum of Music). In 2015 her student Dmitry Gudimov (teacher at the Conservatory and soloist with the Symphony Orchestra of Thessaloniki, Greece) defended his Candidate dissertation under her supervision: «The Formation and Development of the Russian Cello School in the Context of the European Tradition».

Two of her graduates, Georges Allabdallah and Maria Pigulevskaya, have become laureates of the Fifth and Sixth All‑Russian Competitions for Young Scholars’ Research in the Arts and Culture.

I. P. Shekhovtsova is a regular participant in several leading scholarly and creative forums, including:

• the annual international scholarly‑practical symposium «Brazhnikov Readings» (St. Petersburg);
• the annual All‑Russian theological conference of Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University for the Humanities;
• the international conference «Theorie und Geschichte der Monodie» (Vienna, Austria);
• the international conference on church‑music studies in honour of Archpriest Dimitry Razumovsky, Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory;
• the annual international music festival «Sounds of the Dutar» named after Nurym Khálmametov, and others.

In 2019 she took part in the Eighth International Conference on Orthodox Church Music (ISOCM), held at the University of Eastern Finland (Joensuu).

Her paper «The Life and Creative Path of P. G. Chesnokov», delivered at the opening of the Second International Congress of Choirmasters and Singers of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow, Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, 24–26 October 2019), was broadcast live on the television channel «Soyuz» («The Life and Creative Path of P. G. Chesnokov») and published on the website of the Church‑Public Council under the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ for the Development of Russian Church Singing (text).

Since 2008, together with Associate Professor V. M. Kelle of the Department of Music History, she has led a concert series dedicated to the works of Gnesin‑trained composers, «Linking Generations». In 2014, together with other members of the Scholarly‑Archaeographic Council, she organised and directed the international festival‑conference «The Sounding World of Ancient Rus’»; in 2017 the international online conference «Russian Destinies and Russian Holiness in Hymnography, Liturgical Books, and Sacred Music»; and in 2019 a festival of contemporary Russian sacred music marking the centenary of Deacon Sergey Trubachyov.

Selected publications:

• «The Hymn and the Sermon: Two Traditions in Byzantine Hymnographic Art», in Musical Culture of the Orthodox World: Traditions, Theory, Practice, Moscow, 1994;
• «Examination Records from the Collections of the Elena F. Gnesina Memorial Museum‑Apartment», in Gnesin Historical Collection: On the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, Notes of the Elena F. Gnesina Memorial Museum‑Apartment, Moscow, 2004;
• «Musical Rhetoric and the Byzantine Sticheron of the Eleventh to Fourteenth Centuries (On the Problem of Figural Theory)», in Zvukovoe prostranstvo pravoslavnoy kultury (The Sound Space of Orthodox Culture), Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, vol. 173, Moscow, 2008;
• «The Byzantine Automelon Sticheron of the Twelfth to Fourteenth Centuries as an Object of Compositional Analysis», in Traditional Musical Cultures at the Turn of the Century: Problems, Methods, Research Perspectives, proceedings of the international conference marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Gnesin Laboratory of Folk Music (29 October – 1 November 2008), Moscow, 2008;
• «Greek Singing Manuscripts in the Russian State Library: A First Catalogue», Muzykovedeniye, 2012, no. 4;
• «Greek‑Language Notated Manuscripts in the State Historical Museum: A Preliminary Survey», Muzykovedeniye, 2012, no. 11;
• «Greek‑Russian Liturgical Parallels in the University Course in Music History», in Music Education in the Context of Culture: Questions of Theory, History, and Methodology, proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference (29–31 October 2012), Moscow, 2013;
• «P. I. Sevastyanov as a Collector of Byzantine Singing Manuscripts (Based on Materials from the Russian State Library Research Department of Manuscripts)», in Rumiantsev Readings 2013, proceedings of the international conference (16–17 April 2013), part 2, Moscow, Russian State Library (Pashkov House), 2013;
• «Greek Chants for Russian Tsars in Moscow Collections», Muzykovedeniye, 2013, no. 9;
• «Greek Musical Manuscripts in Moscow (Collections of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts)», Starinnaya muzyka, 2013, no. 4;
• «Preliminary List for a Catalogue of Greek Singing Manuscripts in Moscow Collections», in Muzykalnaya arkheografiya 2013, collected papers of the international scholarly‑practical conference, ed. N. V. Zabolotnaya, Moscow, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, 2013;
• «Greek Musical Manuscripts in the Collecting Activity of Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin)», Vestnik Pravoslavnogo Svyato‑Tikhonovskogo gumanitarnogo universiteta, Series V: Questions of the History and Theory of Christian Art, issue 4 (16), Moscow, 2014;
• «Greek Liturgical Singing Manuscripts in Moscow in the Seventeenth Century», Starinnaya muzyka, 2014, no. 4, pp. 9–22; 2015, no. 1, pp. 1–9;
• «The Sounding World of Ancient Rus’», Muzykovedeniye, 2015, no. 1;
• «From the History of Moscow Collections of Greek Singing Manuscripts: The Collection of D. V. Razumovsky», Vestnik Pravoslavnogo Svyato‑Tikhonovskogo gumanitarnogo universiteta, Series V, issue 2 (18), Moscow, 2015;
• «Irina Aleksandrovna Givental», in Gnesinsky Dom. History of the Gnesin Educational Institutions, eds. E. P. Kostina and V. V. Tropp, Moscow, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, 2015;
• «The Composer of a Legendary Destiny: Orazmukhammed Kurban‑Niyazov», Uchenye zapiski Rossiyskoy akademii muzyki imeni Gnesinykh, 2016, no. 4 (19);
• «Notes on the History of Russian Musical Byzantine Studies», in Muzykalnaya arkheografiya 2015, collected papers from the conference «The Sounding World of Ancient Rus’» (19–21 November 2014), eds. N. V. Zabolotnaya and I. P. Shekhovtsova, Moscow, Gnesin Russian Academy of Music, 2017;
• «In the Footsteps of P. I. Sevastyanov’s Athos Expedition», Vestnik Pravoslavnogo Svyato‑Tikhonovskogo gumanitarnogo universiteta, Series V, issue 2 (26), Moscow, 2017;
• «Russian Sources on the Byzantine Liturgical‑Musical Tradition in Courses on Music‑Historical Disciplines», in Music Education in the Context of Culture: Questions of Theory, History, Methodology, and Methods, proceedings of the Twelfth Inter‑University Conference (1–3 November 2016), ed. E. S. Derunets, Moscow, PROBEL‑2000, 2017;
• «From the History of Russian Byzantine Musical Studies: D. V. Razumovsky (1818–1889)», in Musical Writing of the Christian World: Books, Notation, Problems of Interpretation, proceedings of the international conference (12–17 May 2014), ed. I. E. Lozovaya, Moscow State Conservatory Press, 2017 (Gimnologia, vol. 7);
• «Vladimir Vasilyevich Stasov and the Beginnings of Russian Byzantine Musical Studies», Uchenye zapiski Rossiyskoy akademii muzyki imeni Gnesinykh, 2017, no. 2 (21);
• «“Turkmen Melody” and “Beloved Florence”: On the Composer O. Kurban‑Niyazov», in Vzaimoproniknovenie natsionalnykh kultur v kontekste muzykalnogo iskusstva, proceedings of the conference within the Third International Festival «Sounds of the Dutar» named after Nury Khálmametov (2 November 2017), ed. G. P. Stulova, Moscow, RITM, 2017;
• «From the History of Russian Scholarship on Church Singing: On V. V. Stasov’s Greek Studies», in Brazhnikov Readings, proceedings of the international scholarly‑creative symposium (22–24 April 2015), ed. N. V. Ramazanova, St. Petersburg Rimsky‑Korsakov State Conservatory, 2017;
• «Über die Typologie griechischer Gesangshandschriften (anhand der Moskauer Sammlungen)», in Theorie und Geschichte der Monodie, vol. 9, ed. M. Pischlöger, Brno, Verein zur Erforschung der Monodie, 2017;
• «On an Unknown Work by Archpriest D. V. Razumovsky (On the Two‑Hundredth Anniversary of His Birth)», Vestnik Pravoslavnogo Svyato‑Tikhonovskogo gumanitarnogo universiteta, Series V, issue 1 (29), Moscow, 2018;
• «Byzantine Ekphonetic Notation: Survey and Research Perspectives», in Palaeography, Codicology, Diplomatics: Contemporary Research on Greek, Latin, and Slavonic Manuscripts and Documents, proceedings of the international conference marking the eightieth birthday of B. L. Fonkič (27–28 February 2018), ed. I. G. Konovalova, Moscow, Institute of World History, 2018;
• «Russian Sources on the Byzantine Musical‑Liturgical Tradition and the Formation of Russian Scholarship on Church Singing», in Special Historical Disciplines, collected papers, vol. 2, ed. B. L. Fonkič, Moscow, Institute of World History, 2018;
• «Little‑Known Pages in the Biography of Archpriest Dimitry Razumovsky (On the Two‑Hundredth Anniversary of His Birth)», Kultura i iskusstvo, 2018, no. 12 (38);
• «Dedicated to the New Martyrs of Russia: On the History of the Choral Concerto “Praise of Love” by Deacon Sergey Trubachyov (1919–1995)», Vestnik Pravoslavnogo Svyato‑Tikhonovskogo gumanitarnogo universiteta, Series V, issue 36, Moscow, 2019;
• «Griechische Handschriften mit ekphonetischer Notation in Russland», Theorie und Geschichte der Monodie, vol. 10, Brno, Verein zur Erforschung der Monodie, 2020, pp. 485–522;
• «Musical Palaeography in the Works of Bishop Porfiry (Uspensky) (1804–1885)», Vestnik Pravoslavnogo Svyato‑Tikhonovskogo gumanitarnogo universiteta, Series V, issue 41, Moscow, 2021, pp. 52–79.