February 8-9, 2012: the Taganrog Tchaikovsky School for Music is celebrating its 125th anniversary. Among honored guests of the commemorative events was Mrs. Marianna Molla-Kulakova, the granddaughter of Gaetano Molla (Giuseppe Cesare Gaetano Molla, 1845 - 1894), an Italian impresario, conductor and chorus-master at La Scala, who settled in Taganrog in 1863 as director of Italian Opera Theater and became the center of Taganrog's music life for 31 years.

February 9, 2012 Victor Skvortsov, Director of the Tchaikovsky School for Music, Deputy of the City Council Alexey Ivanishev and Marianna Molla-Kulakova unveiled the memorial plaque dedicated to Gaetano Molla and Valerian Molla who were the founders of music education in the city of Taganrog.


Taganrog Tchaikovsky School for Music is one of the oldest music colleges in Russia. In 1883 a music and drama society was founded in the city of Taganrog by the Italian conductor Gaetano Molla. In 1887 the society received permission to offer music lessons that were organized by Vyacheslav Suk, subsequently Peoples' Artist of the USSR and chief conductor of Bolshoi Theater. In 1937 the Taganrog School for Music celebrated its 50th anniversary and in 1938 the Presidium of the Rostov regional executive committee named the school after Pyotr Iliytch Tchaikovsky.


In 2012 six hundred students attend music lessons (24 majors) at the Tchaikovsky School for Music. The participation of its students at various music contests has become a part of educational process. In the recent years the school students won international contests in Austria, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Republic and domestic contest in Russian cities of Bryansk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Pyatigorsk, Volgodonsk and Rostov on Don.

Among its alumni at different times were:

- Vladimir Grigorievitch Zakharov, Peoples' Artist of the USSR, three-time USSR State Prize winner, conductor, director of the Pyatnitsky Russian State National Choir;
- Adrian Yegorov, Professor of the Moscow Conservatory;
- Nikolay Gozulov, Professor of the Kiev Conservatory;
- Yelena Obraztsova, opera singer, Peoples' Artist of the USSR ;
- Alexander Naumenko, opera singer, Peoples' Artist of Russia;
- Yekaterina Strashenko, opera singer of the National Opera of Ukraine named after Shevchenko;
- Alexander Sladkovsky, Peoples' Artist of Russia, art director and chief conductor of the State Symphony Orchestra of The Republic of Tatarstan.