Zara Aleksandrovna Levina (1906 – 1976)
Zara Aleksandrovna Levina was born in the Russian Empire to a Jewish family living in Simferopol, now the second largest city in Crimea. She studied piano at the Odessa Conservatory, and piano and composition at the Moscow Conservatory.
As a Soviet-era composer, Zara Levina was almost exactly contemporaneous with Dmitri Shostakovich, but she was much less known. It is likely that none of her music was ever performed outside the USSR during her lifetime. In 1976, the New York Times marked her death with the following brief notice:
MOSCOW, July 1 (Reuters) — Zara Levina. a Soviet composer, has died after illness, the Tass press agency reported. She was 70. Most of her works were written for children but she also composed other songs and chamber works.
That short notice fails to mention that Zara Levina also composed two marvelous piano concertos in 1942 and 1975, but there are currently no live performances of them on YouTube. This is her Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 from 1952. The three movements were posted on YouTube in separate videos: