In loving memory of Yakov Gubanov
- yakovgubanov
- Mar 22
- 1 min read
With our hearts full of sorrow we announce that Yakov passed away at midnight on Friday, 21 March, in Vienna. He was diagnosed with a devastating cancer which took his life in three months.
Yakov lived and experienced everything through the lens of an Artist.
Let us all remember him in all of his beauty and depth of soul, and let us celebrate him through his own precious music and words.
Enrica and Tanya,
loving wife and daughter.
Maria
I’m very fortunate to have had a little time getting to know you Yakov.
I met you at the same time I first met Enrica, in Acquapendente, Italy, where we shared a meal together and discovered your ‘Russian’ love of meat and potatoes along with my ‘Irish’ husband’s, James! I experienced you as quiet and gentle and often with a sense of mischief about you. It was as if your inner world was rich with observations, parallels, synchronicities and curiosities that tickled you …. enjoying puns on words and an interest about the dreams had the night before, often with the suggestion of the prescient knowledge that might be before us … if only we tuned in….
Dear Yakov,…
Yakov was the most knowledgable, skilled, and passionate musician I've known, possessing an unsurpassed breadth and depth of musicality and humanity. Not just a composer and teacher, Yakov ranged from virtuosic pianist, to silent film improv accompanist, to world-renowned lecturer and theorist, to astronomy enthusiast, to beloved husband, father, friend, and colleague.
We worked together furiously for 3+ years, sharing weekly video lessons. Yakov introduced me to a wealth of music, from hidden gems of the Baroque to 20th century techniques like dodecaphonism, controlled aleatory, and cut-up technique. He helped me sharpen my harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, and analysis skills, while composing 8 pieces under his tutelage. It was so challenging, so fun, so rewarding.
I consider myself endlessly fortunate to…
It seems only like yesterday since I sent my first words to Yakov, hoping he might reply, and be interested in communicating about music in general, and Shostakovich in particular. A name behind a website, later to become a voice in my head, when he agreed to be interviewed about his life as a musician and composer. We talked for a long time after which Yakov, in typical style, worked and reworked the words that emerged from our conversation, requesting that some be excluded, and others refined. “A labour of love” one might say, and the more I got to know Yakov, the more these words rang true. Because for him the notion of work, of challenges and deadlines were…
Dear Enrica and Tatiana, please accept my deepest condolences… you are in my thoughts.
I still can’t believe that Yasha is no longer with us… a great musician, a very dear friend, an incredible human being with a big heart. Always kind, humble, generous, loving and compassionate. Rest in peace.
Yakov deve essere stato una persona davvero speciale. Il suo corpo si è spento, ma la luce della sua anima buona splenderà per sempre nella sua musica e nell’amore che ha lasciato dietro di sé.
Con molta ammirazione,
Barbara