Nikolai Kapustin was born in Gorlovka, Ukraine, in 1937, studied the piano with Avrelian Rubakh, who had been a student of Felix Blumenfeld, and then graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1961 as a piano student of Alexander Goldenweiser. After performing with the jazz bands of Yuri Saulsky and Oleg Lundström, Kapustin dedicated himself to composition. His vast output for piano, published by A-RAM and Zen-on and distributed by The Music Trading Company Ltd (MusT) in London, includes twenty-one sonatas, six concertos, 24 Preludes, Op. 53, 24 Preludes & Fugues, Op. 82, 10 Bagatelles, Op. 59, and three sets of etudes, Op. 40, Op. 67, and Op. 68.