Even during the Great Patriotic War military faculties of Moscow and Leningrad Conservatories didn’t stop working.
In September of 1941 students of the Leningrad Conservatory valiantly fought the enemy defending the city on Neva. Unfortunately, many of them didn’t get through the tragic ‘blockade’ winter of 1941/42.
When the war broke out the military faculty of the Moscow Conservatory decided to transfer all their students to a crash program. All in all, there were four crash graduation classes. In 1944 the military faculty was reformed into an independent educational institution and got the name of the High School of Military Kapellmeisters.