Serge Koussevitzky

The Russian double bass player, conductor and composer Serge Koussevitzky was born in a family of musicians. He excelled at the bass, joining the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra at age twenty and succeeding his teacher as the principal bassist at twenty-seven. As a soloist, he made his Moscow debut in 1901, and won critical accolades for his first Berlin recital in 1903.
In 1908, Koussevitzky made his professional debut as a conductor, hiring and leading a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The next year he founded his own orchestra in Moscow and branched out into the publishing business, forming his own firm and buying the catalogues of many of the greatest composers of the age, including Stravinsky, Scriabin, Prokofiev and Rachmaninov. During the period 1909 to 1920 he established himself as a brilliant conductor in Europe. After the Russian Revolution, he returned to his homeland for a brief time to conduct the State Symphony Orchestra in Petrograd; in 1920, he made his way to Paris, where he organized the Concerts Koussevitzky, presenting new works by Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Ravel.
In 1924 he accepted the directorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra beginning a golden era for that ensemble that would continue until 1949. In Boston, Koussevitzky championed new music,commissioning important works from Copland, Harris, Piston, Samuel Barber, Hanson, Schuman, Leonard Bernstein, and his old friends, Stravinsky and Ravel.
In 1942 the Koussevitzky Foundation was established to commission and provide performances of new works.