We have the sad duty of announcing the death of our Honorary President Alexander Serafimovich Scriabin (b.1947), Ph D. He was for a long period the Director of the Alexander Goldenweiser Museum and, from 1992, Director of the Scriabin Foundation. He founded the Scriabin International Piano Competition and has instituted important Scriabin memorials. As a member of the Academic Council of the Scriabin Memorial Museum he has been instrumental in the dissemination of information about the Museum and its activities. He has been an indefatigable publicist of Scriabin and an assiduous compiler of important volumes both on Scriabin and on Goldenweiser.
Simon Nicholls writes:
Так! Все мы помнили ––– но волил он, и деял.
V. Ivanov.
So! We remembered all –––– but he willed and acted.
I first met Alexander Serafimovich in the Taneyev Reference Library of Moscow Conservatoire. He impressed me immediately as a man of great energy and authority. Soon afterwards, as the recipient of warm hospitality over a delicious meal in the Goldenweiser Museum, I discovered his kindness and warmth together with that of his wife Anna, who survives him. He was endlessly generous in helping me to find rare materials for research and was warmly receptive of all who showed a genuine interest in Scriabin. A deeply and widely cultured man, he made characteristic and informative contributions to many of the Museum’s internet postings.
When the English Scriabin Association was founded, he was our clear choice as Honorary President and we were delighted when he accepted. In the present tragic situation with Russia, his death robs us of a valuable link with the Memorial Museum and the world of Russian Scriabin research.