Composer Eduard Artemyev has died

Soviet and Russian composer Eduard Artemyev passed away at 86 years old.

The composer was hospitalized in Moscow with COVID-19 at the beginning of December. Doctors reported that Artemyev’s condition was moderate, but that his situation was complicated by chronic heart disease. Speaking to TASS at the time, the composer said he “felt normal.”

The composer’s son later reported that his father had been transferred to an intensive care unit after complications arose during treatment for bacterial pneumonia.

• Eduard Artemyev was born on November 30, 1937. He wrote music for two Russian Olympic Games and more than 150 artistic, documentary, and animated films. His scores include the Andrey Tarkovsky films Solaris, Mirror, and Stalker; the Nikita Mikhalkov films At Home among Strangers, A Slave of Love, An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano, A Few Days from the Life of I. I. Oblomov, Family Relations, and others; as well as Andrey Konchalovsky’s Siberiade.