Russian composer Pavel Slobodkin died yesterday in Moscow. He was 73. Born in 1945 in Moscow into a family of musicians. In 1966, Slobodkin created one of the first vocal-instrumental ensembles in the country, ‘Merry Fellows’. In 2002 he created the Moscow Theatre and Chamber Centre Pavel Slobodkin. The chamber orchestra of the Pavel Slobodkin Centre has made numerous recordings which are internationally distributed.