Ion Melnik

Ion S. Melnik was a Russian and Soviet era composer.
His compositions include songs, choruses, instrumental music, and music to documentary films.

Education

Ion Melnik began his musical education at the age of seven when he joined the children's ensemble of the USSR Ministry of Railways where he played the first domra and later became the concertmaster of the orchestra. The music director of the ensemble was Simon Osipovich Dunaevsky, a brother of the legendary Soviet era composer, Isaak Osipovich Dunaevsky. In 1948, Isaak Osipovich Dunaevsky recommended that Ion Melnik enroll in the Seminar of Young Composers of the USSR's Union of Composers. At the Seminar, Ion Melnik studied composition under Igor Mikhailovich Belorusets, an assistant to Mikhail Fibianovich Gnessin.
After the Seminar, Ion Melnik continued to study composition at the Music College affiliated with the Moscow State Conservatory and the Leningrad State Conservatory named after Rimsky-Korsakov. His teachers included Julian Grigorievich Krein, Grigory Samuilovich Frid, Sergei Mikhailovich Slonimsky.

Music

1955-58, military service in the Ensemble of the Northern Fleet where he played the viola. While there, he composed a number of songs including "Belomorskaya Lyricheskaya" which was included in the repertoire of the Ensemble. In 1962, he established an ensemble in the air defense forces of the Moscow region. He continued to serve as the director and conductor of the ensemble until 1971. With this ensemble, he performed his composition "Volzhskaya Krucha" dedicated to the battle of Stalingrad on the Goluboy Ogonyek TV program dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War.
Starting in the late 1950s, Ion Melnik began to work with the Theater of Front Novels. This theater was founded by two veterans of World War II, a hero of the USSR, vice-admiral Georgi Nikitich Holostyakov and Seraphim Ivanovich Kytaev. Beginning with 1959, Ion Melnik became the musical director of the theater and remained in that capacity until 1990. Ion Melnik also served as the musical director of the Octet of the Veterans of the Krasnoznamenny Ensemble. In 1985, Ion Melnik founded a wind orchestra at one of the main recreational state parks of the city of Moscow, Sokolniki.
He composed music to two documentary films: DOSAAF - Rodine, Rodinu Gotovsja Zashishat. The march from the first film was officially adapted as the anthem of DOSAAF in the 1980s. Chorus music plays an important role in the art of Ion Melnik. He has composed numerous songs. His songs have been used on central TV, radio, in concerts, including three performances at the Kremlin Palace, and publications.