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Russian virtuoso cellist Rostropovich dies at 80

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World-famous cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich died Friday at the age of 80, his press spokeswoman said.
MOSCOW, April 27 (RIA Novosti) - World-famous cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich died Friday at the age of 80, his press spokeswoman said.

The musician was taken to a Moscow oncology center several days ago, and he had spent several months in the hospital earlier this year after he fell ill during a December tour to Voronezh, in southern Russia.

His illness had not been disclosed, but Russian media said Rostropovich had had his liver operated on following a course of therapy in Switzerland and France.

Rostropovich was discharged from the hospital at the beginning of March to celebrate his 80th birthday, but he looked frail at a Kremlin reception later that month, when he was given the supreme national award, For Distinguished Service to the Fatherland.

Dignitaries from around the world gathered in Moscow March 27 to honor the renowned musician, who had been forced into exile and deprived of his Soviet citizenship in the 1970s for supporting Soviet dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn and criticizing the lack of artistic and intellectual freedom in his country.

The Times has called Rostropovich one of the greatest living musicians, and he was a member of the French Academy of "Forty Immortals."

The maestro was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Rome-based National Academy of Santa Cecilia, the British Academy, the Swiss Royal Academy and the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, and holds the title of honorary professor in 50 universities around the globe.

He also holds the Imperial Award of the Japan Art Association and a number of other awards.

Since his Russian citizenship was restored in 1994, Rostropovich divided his time between homes in Russia, Western Europe and the United States.

He is survived by his wife, the renowned opera singer Galina Vishnevskaya, to whom he was married for more than 50 years, and two daughters and grandchildren.

Vishnevskaya's opera center in Moscow said the great musician would be buried in the Novodevichy cemetery, where famous Russian and Soviet dignitaries are buried, and where Russia's first post-Soviet president Boris Yeltsin was laid to rest Wednesday.

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