Alexei Haieff

Biography

Alexei Vasilievich Haieff (August 25, 1914 – March 1, 1994) was an American composer of orchestral and choral works. He is known for following Stravinsky's neoclassicism, observing an austere economy of means, and achieving modernistic effects by a display of rhythmic agitation, often with jazzy undertones.

Background

Born in Blagoveshchensk, in the Russian Far East, Haieff received his primary education at Harbin, Manchuria. In 1931 he went to the U.S., where he studied with Rubin Goldmark and Frederick Jacobi at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City (1934–38). In 1938-39 he also studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He became a U.S. citizen and held U.S. citizenship for 55 years, until his death.
He held a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1946 and again in 1949, and was a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome (1947–48). His Divertimento (1944) was choreographed by George Balanchine in 1947. He won the Rome Prize in 1949. He was a visiting composition and music theory professor at Carnegie Institute of Technology for the 1962-63 School year.
He was a professor at the University at Buffalo (1962–68), and composer-in-residence at the University of Utah (1968–70). His Piano Concerto won the New York Music Critics' Circle Award (1952) and his 2nd Symphony the American International Music Fund Award (1957).
Haieff's notable students include Paul Ramsier.
He was married to Sheila Jeanne Agatha van Meurs in 1988. He died in Rome, Italy, at the age of 79.