Anatoli Badkhen was born in the Soviet Odessa in 1922 to a family of
musicians, and moved to Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia)
when he was a toddler. He learned to play the trumpet as a child and
started playing in bands when he was 17. He began conducting in the
1940s in Siberia, and graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory in
1955. In 1959 he became the senior conductor of the Leningrad Stage
Theater, and in 1969 he founded the Leningrad Concert Orchestra.
The orchestra released more than 700 singles and 15 LPs and performed
in soundtracks to many Soviet movies.
Badkhen died of cancer in Leningrad on Oct. 1, 1989, on the date of the
20th anniversary of his orchestra.
