Reinhold Glière was born in Kiev as the second son of a wind instrument maker who came from Saxony and married the daughter of his Polish master. He studied violin with Ševĉik in Kiev. In 1894, at the age of twenty, he joined the Moscow Conservatory. There, he continued learning violin from Hřimalý and took classes with teachers like Arensky, Konyus, Taneyev, and Ippolitov-Ivanov. Taneyev helped him find two private students named Myaskovsky and Prokofiev, who was only eleven at the time. Glière also taught at the Gnesin School and spent three years studying conducting in Berlin. Later, he returned to Kiev and became the director of the local conservatory. After the 1920 revolution, Glière moved to Moscow, where he taught at the conservatory until 1941. During this time, he showed interest in the music from different eastern Soviet republics. He kept to the romantic Russian style and became well known for his Soviet ballets The Red Poppy and The Bronze Horseman. These ballets also reflect his interest in broader Slavic musical traditions, showing that his work connected to various cultural influences. His compositions gained a wide audience and remain important parts of Soviet music history.