Choir conductor, composer, folk‑song researcher, and public figure.
In 1960 he graduated from the Krasnodar Music and Pedagogical College, and in 1967 from the M. I. Glinka Novosibirsk State Conservatoire with a degree in Choral Conducting. From 1964 to 1974 he served as Chief Chorus Master of the Siberian State Russian Folk Choir.
Since 1974 he has been Artistic Director of the State Academic Kuban Cossack Choir.
He is currently Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the State Academic Kuban Cossack Choir.
V. G. Zakharchenko is the author of more than two hundred musical works and over a thousand folk‑song arrangements, and has published a number of studies on the history of folk song.
He chairs the council of the Istoki Charitable Foundation for the Revival of Kuban Folk Culture, is an academician of the International Academy of Information and the Russian Humanitarian Academy, a member of the Union of Composers of Russia, and a member of the presidia of the All‑Russian Choral Society and the All‑Russian Musical Society.
He has received many orders and medals, including the Orders «For Services to the Fatherland» III and IV class, the Order of Friendship, the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, and the Order «Badge of Honour». He holds the titles People’s Artist of Russia, Ukraine, the Republic of Adygea, and the Republic of Abkhazia, and is a laureate of the State Prize of Russia.
He is a member of the Presidential Council for Culture and the Arts of the Russian Federation.
