Viktor Akulovich Artistic Director and Conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of Folk Instruments “Skomorokhi” of the Saint-Petersburg State Institute of Culture.

Viktor Akulovich was born in 1948 in Vienna, Austria. He graduated from the music school on a class of button accordion in Mogilev (the Republic of Belarus) and later – from the Institute of Culture in Leningrad and did an assistantship training in the Rimsky-Korsakov Leningrad State Conservatory in the specialty of Conductor of the Folk Instrument Orchestra.

Since 1972 until present Viktor Akulovich has been a Professor, and starting from 2012 – head of the Orchestra Conducting Department of the Saint-Petersburg State Institute of Culture. In 1983 he passed Ph.D. defense on history of the Russian folk instrument orchestra. He published more than 60 works on issues of the national instrumental music, including in editions of the Russian Academy of Sciences and collections of studies of the Institute of Culture. Together with another author he prepared edition of the music and ethnography writings byN.I. Privalov. Viktor Akulovich became the author of several score collections for the national orchestra from compositions of the St. Petersburg composers A.P. Petrov and S.M. Slonimskiy. To prepare full-length concert programs he performed more than one hundred transcriptions of symphonic scores for the national orchestra for compositions of M.A. Balakirev, D.D. Shostakovich, S.M. Slonimskiy, V.A. Gavrilin, I.I. Shvarts, G.V. Sviridov, A.P. Petrov.

Viktor Akulovich actively gives concerts. He prepared concert programs as a conductor with 25 folk instrument orchestras in Russia and abroad.

From 1999 until 2005 he worked with the world oldest amateur company – the Gelsingforsskiy Balalaika Orchestra (Helsinki, Finland) as an invited conductor and prepared a CD “Narration about Russia” together with it. He performed together with the Gelsingforsskiy Balalaika Orchestra in Helsinki, Saint-Petersburg, and Tallinn. He was also invited to Manchester (England), where he performed together with the South Symphonic Orchestra and Child Orchestra “Kalinka” (Manchester, England).

During 45 years of his work at the Institute of Culture he trained some 200 experts working in the field of the national and instrumental music in Russia and abroad (India, Mongolia, the Czech Republic, Yemen, Finland, China, and Mexico).

Viktor Akulovich has been the founder and permanent director of “Skomorokhi” Group since their first practice in 1969 until present. Concert programs of “Skomorokhi” were successfully demonstrated in more than 20 countries of Europe, Asia and Africa, including Italy and South Korea, Finland and Algeria, Portugal and the Azores, Greece, India, Belgium, Holland and Japan, England and Germany and others. During this period “Skomorokhi” had some 250 performances only in France. The high level of the Group’s masterly performance allowed it receiving awards and prizes at international festivals and competitions in Belgium, Spain, Denmark, Greece, Slovenia, as well as preparing concert programs with distinguished masterful players of the national and instrumental genre of Russia, with many of these concerts having become the musical event and generated strong interest from the Saint-Petersburg public.

Starting from 1995 Viktor Akulovich has been fronting a permanent authorial set of programs on the Saint-Petersburg radio, which introduced performers playing on Russian national instruments to listeners. He prepared some 100 programs.

Since 2007 he has been a Professor of the Department of Groups, Instrumentation and Conducting of the Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory.

From 2010 until 2011 he was an Artistic Director of the Smolensk Russian National Orchestra named after V.P. Dubrovskiy.

Viktor Akulovich has Ph.D. in Pedagogy (1983), is an Honored Artist of Russia (1992), Professor (1995), award holder of the St. Petersburg Government for outstanding achievements in the field of higher and secondary vocational education (2015). He was awarded a medal “In honor of the 300th anniversary of Saint-Petersburg” (2004), a medal “For faith and kindness” (2008). Viktor Akulovich is an honored conductor of the Gelsingforsskiy Balalaika Orchestra (2008).

Concert hall P. I. Tchaikovsky (Moscow, 2004). Author's concert of Andrey Petrov. National academic orchestra of folk instruments Russia im. N. P.Osipova. On the photo: Maria Lyudko, Zara, Viktor Akulovich, Andrey Petrov, Svyatoslav Belza.	Concert hall "Finlandia Hall" (Helsinki, Finland, 2010). The 100th anniversary Gelsingforsskiy Balalaika Orchestra. Soloists: Alexander Tsygankov, Andrey Gorbachev. Conductor Viktor Akulovich.
St.James's Church (London, UK, 2013). Soloist Professor of the Royal Academy of music Nicholas Walker. Conductor Viktor Akulovich	Grand hall of the Philharmonic. D. D. Shostakovich (St. Petersburg, 2017). Soloist Olga Skultina.