Alexander Slobodyanik, 65, concert pianist and teacher

NEW YORK - Alexander Slobodyanik, a Ukrainian-born pianist who gained stardom in the former Soviet Union with his virtuosity and emotional interpretations of Romantic composers and who has been a concert pianist and teacher since moving to the United States in 1989, died Sunday in New Jersey. He was 65 and lived in Morristown, N.J.

The cause was infectious meningitis, said Maya Pritsker, the cultural editor of Novoye Russkoye Slovo, a Russian-language daily newspaper in New York City.

Mr. Slobodyanik was something of a prodigy in his homeland, earning a place, at 15, at Moscow Central Special Music School, where he studied with Heinrich Neuhaus, and later at the Moscow Conservatory. He was recommended by Sviatoslav Richter to the impresario Sol Hurok, who was visiting Moscow, and Hurok brought him to America.

Mr. Slobodyanik made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1968 in a solo recital. The program included sonatas by Mozart and Prokofiev, Liszt's "Sixth Rhapsody," and Schumann's "Carnaval."

Born and raised in Ukraine, Mr. Slobodyanik was a product of the Soviet era. He spoke mostly, if not exclusively, Russian and was devoted, especially in his American years, to Russian composers. He was born in Kiev and grew up mostly in Lviv. His mother was a piano teacher, his father a psychiatrist. Their son, a handsome and personable young man, was a Russian celebrity as a young musician.