Musician. He gained recognition as a Russian pianist, composer, instructor, and conductor who became a highlight in 19th-century cultural society. In 1862, he founded the Imperial Conservatory at St. Petersburg, the first music school in Russia. Born of Jewish parentage at Wechwotynetz in Podolia, which is the Republic of Moldov in the 21st century, his family was forced to convert in 1834 to Russian Orthodoxy as they resided under the rule of the Russian Empire. His mother was a pianist and taught him and his younger brother, Nikolai Rubinstein, to play the piano from an early age before finding respected teachers such as Alexander Villoing. The lack of money played a key role in his musical education. In December of 1840, he played in a concert in Paris where virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt was in the audience. Unable to continue his studies for monetary reasons, as Liszt suggested, this concert was followed by tours of Paris, London, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden. Returning to Russia in 1843, he and his brother, Nikolai, held a concert for Russian Czar Nicholas I. In 1844, he studied composition in Germany with Siegfried von Dehn. By age seventeen and alone, he traveled to Vienna and Hungary to study but lived in poverty, returning to Berlin. In 1848, he returned to Russia, where he received financial support from a member of the royal family. He debuted his first opera "Dmitry Donskoy," in 1852. His younger brother, Nikolai, became a remarkable pianist and founded the Conservatorium of Music in Moscow in 1866. During his career, he toured throughout Russia, Eastern Europe, and, in 1872, the United States, playing a series of concerts covering the history of piano music. As a composer, he wrote 20 operas, five piano concerti, six symphonies, a substantial number of chamber ensembles, and several solo pieces for piano, cello, and violin. Amongst his better-known pieces are the opera "The Demon," his Piano Concerto No. 4, and his Symphony No. 2, known as "The Ocean." In 1867, he left the conservatory, where he was a conductor, but returned in 1887, staying until 1891. From 1871 to 1872, he was the conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic concerts. Among his students were Pyotr Tchaikovsky, who he taught composition, and one of his last students, Josef Hofmann. In 1865, he married Viera Tchekuanov, and the couple had three children and after his financial success, lived on an estate in St. Petersburg. Politically, he spoke against Russian nationalism, which alienated him from others as well as living in Germany for many years and his Jewish heritage, a faith he did not practice. He died from heart disease in St. Petersburg and is buried in the Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Monastery. The street in St. Petersburg where he lived was named in honor of him. There is no known relation between the twentieth-century pianist Arthur Rubinstein and his Rubinstein family.