Aaron Avshalomov was a Russian composer known for his unique integration of the aesthetics of traditional Chinese music with European classical music. Largely self-taught, he composed four symphonies, three operas, and also concertos, ballets, and vocal works. He was born in 1894 in Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, a Mountain Jewish community in Russia. By 1907, his family had moved to Khabarovsk, a town near the Russian and Chinese border. There he was exposed to traditional Chinese music through Peking Opera performances, and he was fascinated by what he heard. Avshalomov's father wanted him to study medicine, so he was sent to Switzerland in 1914, where he attended the Zurich Conservatory. Musical instruction was also included in his curriculum, but the beginning of World War I interrupted his first semester and he fled to the United States. The following year he met Esther Magidson and they got married in 1916. They moved to China in 1918 where Avshalomov studied Chinese music and worked for Chinese book merchants. One year later, they had a son, Jacob, who would also become a significant composer and conductor as an adult. Shortly after Jacob's birth, the couple got divorced and Esther took him to the United States. Avshalomov began composing around this time and experimented with orchestrating the aesthetics of Chinese music. One of his first works that utilizes this multicultural synthesis is his opera Kuan Yin, which was first performed in Peking in 1925. He moved to Oregon in 1926 but was not able to establish the same professional success that he had in China, so he returned in 1929 and eventually joined a thriving Jewish community in Shanghai. He resumed composing and began working as the head librarian at the Shanghai Municipal Library. In 1931 he composed Peiping Hutungs, which he described as a symphonic poem on Chinese street sounds and cries. This colorful work premiered in Shanghai in 1933, and Leopold Stokowski conducted its American premiere in 1935. During this period, Avshalomov also composed piano and violin concertos, his first symphony, and two more operas. In 1943 he left his position at the library and became the conductor of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Due to the escalation of the war between Japan and China, and World War II, he decided to move back to the United States with his son in 1947. Once he was settled, he continued composing and produced a flute concerto, three more symphonies, and other works until his death in 1965. Many of his compositions have been recorded by his son Jacob Avshalomov and grandson David Avshalomov. ~ RJ Lambert, Rovi