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{raws-traw-poh'-vichm, m'stee'-slahv}
Mstislav Rostropovich, b. Mar. 27, 1927, is one of the world's
finest cellists and a leading conductor. He was a highly honored
artist in his native Soviet Union in the 1950s and '60s, but
fell into official disfavor when he demonstrated his political
unorthodoxy by openly befriending dissident writer Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn and criticizing the Soviet Ministry of Culture.
Thereafter, his professional career was severely curtailed,
and as a consequence in 1974 he fled to the West for artistic
freedom, followed shortly by his wife, the noted soprano Galina
Visnevskaya (whom he frequently accompanies at the piano in
recital), and children. In 1977 he was appointed music director
of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. In
1978 he and his wife were denounced by the Soviet government
and divested of their Soviet citizenship. In 1990, however,
in response to a Soviet invitation, Rostropovich gave a series
of performances in the USSR.
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