Gregory Haimovsky  Gregory Haimovsky (born in 1926, Moscow) is Russian a pianist, writer, and pedagogue. He graduated from Moscow Conservatory in 1950. In the era of Stalin's anti-Semitism, like the fate of many of his contemporaries-musicians, Haimovsky's destiny as a performer was thwarted. Immediately after his graduation concert, despite the formal characterization of the conservatory's administration noting him as an "extremely gifted pianist, outstanding performing abilities ...," he was kicked out of Moscow by the communist regime to Russia's remote provinces, where, except for a short period of creative work in Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory, he spent 16 years isolated from concert stages. However, in 1966 Haimovsky returned to Moscow and entered the mainstream of the capital's musical life as a pianist and writer on music and musicians. An expert on French music in particular, Haimovsky was the first to bring to Russian musical culture the works of Olivier Messiaen. From 1966 to 1972 as a soloist and in collaboration with the best musicians of the capital, Haimovsky premiered Messiaen's most famous works for the USSR. Among them are: "Quartet for End of Time" (with M. Baranov, V. Tupikin, V. Simon, later recorded by "Melody"), "Visions of Amen" (with I. Katz), "Haravi" (with N. Cherednyakova ), "Three small liturgies of the Divine Presence" (with S. Sandetskis), "Exotic Birds" (with G. Rozhdestvensky), fragments of the works from the "20 Regards of the baby Jesus," "Sketches of rhythm", "Catalogue of Birds". Haimovsky played the solo piano in "Turangalila-Symphony", performed for the first time in Russia by the USSR State Symphony Orchestra (conductor Evgeny Svetlanov). Triumph of "Turangalila" in Moscow (1971) was stunning. For his work Haimovsky received a letter of gratitude from the composer. During this time, Haimovsky published the first articles about Messiaen in “Soviet Music”, receiving considerable attention. In 1968, the publishing house “Soviet Composer” signed a contract with him for the first Russian book on Messiaen. The manuscript was completed in 1970, but was not published due to objections from communist censors.