Yuri Maizels was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in the former Soviet Union. After the conclusion of the Second World War, he was accepted at age 13 into the Naval Boarding Musical School in Leningrad (the school which had been organized in 1873 by Rimsky-Korsakov), to study the oboe. In 1964, he graduated from the College of Music with multiple degrees in oboe performance, oboe teaching, and conducting. During his career, Yuri Maizels played in major orchestras, working with such well-known conductors as Yuri Temirkanov, Mariss Jansons, Yuri Simionov, Valery Gergiev, and others. -the publisher