, 1989, Moscow]]Alfred Garyevich Schnittke (, November 24, 1934 Engels - August 3, 1998 Hamburg) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Biography Schnittke's father was born in Frankfurt to a Jewish family of Russian origin who had moved to the USSR in 1926, and his mother was a Volga German born in Russia. Alfred Schnittke was born in Engels in the Volga-German Republic of the RSFSR, Soviet Union. He began his musical education in 1946 in Vienna where his father, a journalist and translator, had been posted. In 1948 the family moved to Moscow. He completed his graduate work in composition at the Moscow Conservatory in 1961 and taught there from 1962 to 1972. Thereafter he supported himself mainly by composing film scores. Schnittke converted to Christianity and possessed deeply held mystic beliefs which influenced his music. In the 1960s he studied at the Moscow Conservatory where, among his teachers in composition, was Evgeny Golubev.