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Olga Naumoff was born on July 15, 1901 in Samara (now Kuibyshev), Russia. She was the daughter of Alexander Naumoff and Anna Ouchkoff. Her father was a minister in the imperial government. Her mother was a member of the wealthy Ouchkoff family, tea importers and patrons of the arts.
Olga Naumoff was educated privately.
In 1917 the Russian Revolution forced her family to flee to the West, where they settled in Nice, France. In 1929, Naumoff accompanied her aunt Natalia and Natalia's husband, the orchestra conductor Serge Koussevitzky, to the United States as companion and secretary. Natalia Ouchkoff had married Serge Koussevitzky in 1905. She used her wealth to promote her husband's talent and vision.
In 1909 the Koussevitzkys had acquired a music publishing company and in 1910, a symphony orchestra. He published the work of young Russian composers, such as Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Aleksander Scriabin, and Igor Stravinsky, and subsequently introduced the new music in his concerts.
In 1920 he and his wife fled Russia. He continued to publish and perform the music of young European composers, such as Arthur Honegger, Maurice Ravel, and Albert Roussel.
In 1924 he was hired to conduct the Boston Symphony and during his twenty-five years there he premiered 110 new works, the majority of them by American composers, such as Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Walter Piston, and William Schuman, in effect establishing their careers. In this environment, Olga Naumoff became acquainted with many of the important musical personalities of her time. Koussevitzky desired to bring music to ever-larger audiences. In the summer of 1936 he began to perform at the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachussets, which has grown into one of the world's most famous and ambitious summer music festivals.
In 1940 he established the Berkshire Music Center, a summer school for talented young musicians, where he taught conducting; young Leonard Bernstein was a student in his first class. Staff and students maintained ties throughout their lives, forming a network of America's musical elite. By 1969 the festival and school were staffed by alumni, as Koussevitzky had envisioned.
In 1941, Naumoff became an American citizen. The following year her aunt Natalia died.
In 1949, Koussevitzky retired from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Leonard Bernstein and the Koussevitzkys traveled to Israel, where the two men were to conduct the Israel Philharmonic. Koussevitzky observed the close bond between her husband and Bernstein. "He came to regard him almost as a son, " she said. Koussevitzky died on June 4, 1951. That year his wife served as president of the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, which he had established to commission new music, and to give awards, scholarships, and prizes at the Berkshire Music Center. In this capacity, Koussevitzky continued her husband's mission: "I saw the path he lighted for those of us who were close to him--his associates and pupils. " I
Koussevitzky's talent for caricature was evident from her teens, when she drew family members and acquaintances as a hobby. Gradually she amassed a sizable collection of these pictures. She illustrated critic Samuel Chotzinoff's book of interviews, A Little Night Music (1964). In 1971, the Hammond Museum in northern Westchester County, mounted an exhibition of her caricatures, "Captured Moments, " that included such musical figures as Vladimir Horowitz, Igor Stravinsky, and Arturo Toscanini. Koussevitzky recalled, "I would meet these great personalities, see them perform, and later in the evening or the next morning I would do a caricature from memory. The stronger the musical impression, the easier it was to do the caricature. "
Koussevitzky remained active in the music world to the end of her life. She was a familiar figure at concerts in New York City in winter and at the Berkshire Music Festival in summer, where she opened the festival. On the Sunday closest to July 26, the anniversary of her husband's birthday, she held a memorial service and served slices of birthday cake at Koussevitzky's graveside. At her death in New York City, Leonard Bernstein commented, "How I shall miss our dear Olga--that fragile Rock of Gibraltar on whom so many of us depended for significant links with a past of love and beauty. "
Olga served as president of the American International Music Fund. She also served on the scholarship fund of the International Federation of Music Clubs. In addition, Koussevitzky supported the Harlem School of the Arts, the Benjamin Britten Club, the Nadia Boulanger Memorial Fund, and the MacDowell Colony. In 1961 she was president of the Musicians Club of New York, which awards cash prizes and performance opportunities to young musicians. Among Koussevitzky's awards for service were the Spirit of Achievement Award, given by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the Medal of Honor of the National Arts Club.
On August 15, 1947, Naumoff and Serge Koussevitzky were married at Seranak, his home at Tanglewood.
