Belarusian composer, Honored Artist of the Byelorussian SSR, member of the Union of Composers of the USSR
Grigory Konstantinovich Puxt (November 27, 1900 — November 11, 1960) was a Belarusian composer, Honored Artist of the Byelorussian SSR (1955), member of the USSR Union of Composers since 1932. He was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor and two medals of the USSR.
Grigory Konstantinovich Puxt was born on November 27, 1900 in Gomel in the family of a railway worker. After graduating from technical school, he worked first as a locksmith and then as a machinist in a locomotive depot. Since childhood, he was fond of music, sang in the choir, and played in the orchestra of folk instruments of the Gomel Railway Workers’ Club. Having mastered his initial musical knowledge on his own, he soon became the head of amateur musical groups. Starting in 1921, in parallel with his amateur work, he taught vocal at Gomel railway schools. Having personally prepared for the exams, Grigory Konstantinovich entered the Moscow State Conservatory in 1923, from which he graduated in 1928 (he studied theoretical subjects with Professor G. Kanius). After graduating from the Conservatory, Puxt taught music theory at the Omsk Music College for about three years, and in 1932 returned to his native Gomel, where he combined teaching at the music college with active creative activity.
In the early days of the Great Patriotic War, the composer joined the front-line concert brigade of the Belarusian State Philharmonic, and after a while, due to the termination of the brigade’s activities, he was sent to Sverdlovsk. Then he was appointed to Kamensk-Uralsky as the musical director of the builders’ club. Since 1943, R. Puxt has been the head of the music department of the Art Department at the Council of People’s Commissars of the BSSR in Moscow. Upon his return to Minsk, liberated from Nazi occupation, he became a teacher at the Belarusian State Conservatory, Music School and college. Since 1952, R. Pukst worked as a choirmaster, and then as the artistic director of the musical broadcasting of the Belarusian Radio.
R. Pukst’s musical legacy includes a large number of works of various genres. Among them: the operas “Masheka” (1946), “Marinka” (1955), “Svityazyanka” (1960); 6 symphonies; the cantata “What is it?” (1958); the first and second suites on the themes of Belarusian folk songs; fantasy on the theme of the Belarusian folk song “Perepelochka” (1947); romances, etc. He arranged Belarusian folk songs, works by amateur composers, was the author of music for films and plays, as well as the author of a significant number of popular vocal works and arrangements of Belarusian folk songs for the choir. The works of G.K. Pukst have become an integral part of the national musical heritage.
