62 Facts About Aram Khachaturian

Aram Khachaturian is considered one of the leading Soviet composers.

Aram Khachaturian was born and raised in Tbilisi.

Aram Khachaturian moved to Moscow in 1921 following the Sovietization of the Caucasus.

Aram Khachaturian is best known for his ballet music: Gayane and Spartacus.

Aram Khachaturian's style is "characterized by colorful harmonies, captivating rhythms, virtuosity, improvisations, and sensuous melodies".

Aram Khachaturian traveled to Europe, Latin America and the United States with concerts of his own works.

In 1957 Aram Khachaturian became the Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers, a position he held until his death.

Aram Khachaturian composed the first Armenian ballet music, symphony, concerto, and film score.

Aram Khachaturian is considered the most renowned Armenian composer of the 20th century.

Aram Khachaturian is highly regarded in Armenia, where he is considered a "national treasure".

Aram Khachaturian was born on 6 June 1903 in the city of Tiflis into an Armenian family.

Aram Khachaturian's father, Yeghia, was born in the village of Upper Aza near Ordubad in Nakhichevan and moved to Tiflis at the age of 13; he owned a bookbinding shop by the age of 25.

Aram Khachaturian's parents were betrothed before knowing each other, when Kumash was 9 and Yeghia was 19.

From 1906 to 1922 Aram Khachaturian lived at 93 Uznadze Street in Tbilisi.

Aram Khachaturian received primary education at the commercial school of Tiflis, a school for merchants.

Aram Khachaturian considered a career either in medicine or engineering.

In Tiflis, which has historically been multicultural, Aram Khachaturian was exposed to various cultures.

In 1921, the eighteen-year-old Aram Khachaturian moved to Moscow to join his oldest brother, Suren, who had settled in Moscow earlier and was a stage director at the Moscow Art Theatre by the time of his arrival.

Aram Khachaturian enrolled at the Gnessin Musical Institute in 1922, simultaneously studying biology at Moscow State University.

Aram Khachaturian initially studied the cello under Sergei Bychkov and later under Andrey Borysyak.

In 1929, Aram Khachaturian entered the Moscow Conservatory to study composition under Nikolai Myaskovsky and orchestration under Sergei Vasilenko.

Aram Khachaturian finished the conservatory in 1934 and went on to complete his graduate work in 1936.

Aram Khachaturian began an active creative career upon completing his graduate studies at the conservatory in 1936.

Aram Khachaturian wrote his first major work, the Piano Concerto, that year.

Aram Khachaturian held important posts at the Composers' Union, becoming deputy chairman of the Moscow branch in 1937.

Aram Khachaturian subsequently served as the Deputy Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Union between 1939 and 1948.

Aram Khachaturian learned a lot, saw and heard many things anew, and at the same time he had an insight into the tastes and artistic requirements of the Armenian people.

Aram Khachaturian returned the prize money to the state with a request to use it for building a tank for the Red Army.

In 1944, Aram Khachaturian composed the largely symbolic Anthem of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Aram Khachaturian was sent to Armenia as a "punishment", and continued to be censured.

Aram Khachaturian was named People's Artist of the Soviet Union in 1954.

Aram Khachaturian served as the President of the Soviet Association of Friendship and Cultural Cooperation with Latin American States from 1958 and was a member of the Soviet Peace Committee.

Aram Khachaturian's January 1968 visit to US capital of Washington, DC was a significant one.

Aram Khachaturian conducted the National Symphony Orchestra in a program of his own works.

Aram Khachaturian went on to serve again as Secretary of the Composers Union, starting in 1957 until his death.

Aram Khachaturian was a deputy in the fifth Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.

Aram Khachaturian composed a great portion of his works in a ten-year span between 1936 and 1946, preceding and following the Second World War.

Aram Khachaturian's music is characterized by an active rhythmic development, which reaches either a mere repetition of the basic formula or "a game of emphasis within this formula".

Aram Khachaturian wrote three concertos: the Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto, and the Cello Concerto.

Aram Khachaturian wrote incidental music for several plays, including Macbeth, The Widow from Valencia, Masquerade, King Lear.

Aram Khachaturian was the first Soviet composer to write music for sound films.

Aram Khachaturian is widely known for his use of folk songs of various ethnic groups in his compositions, most notably those of Armenians.

Rosenberg argued that despite not having been born in Armenia, Aram Khachaturian was "essentially an Armenian composer whose music exhibits his Armenian roots".

Aram Khachaturian suggests that Khachaturian's works carry "the vibrant rhythms and stirring pace of Caucasian dance music", but at the same time are "original compositions that reworked that cultural material through new instrumentation and according to European musical canons, resulting in a sound unique to the composer".

Aram Khachaturian was particularly influenced by the folk-song collector, musicologist Komitas, and composers Alexander Spendiaryan and Romanos Melikian.

Aram Khachaturian acknowledged that Komitas "singlehandedly laid the foundations for Armenia's classical tradition".

Aram Khachaturian is cited by musicologists as a follower of Russian classical traditions.

Aram Khachaturian inspired young Armenian composers and had a great influence on the development of Armenian music.

Aram Khachaturian was a close friend of the Bulgarian composer of Pancho Vladigerov and Aram Khachaturian admired his music.

In 1933 Aram Khachaturian married the composer Nina Makarova, a fellow student from Myaskovsky's class at the Moscow Conservatory.

In early October 1965, Aram Khachaturian was briefly admitted into a hospital in Geneva after a heart attack.

Aram Khachaturian died in Moscow on 1 May 1978, after a long illness, just short of his 75th birthday.

Aram Khachaturian was an atheist, and always remained enthusiastic about communism.

Aram Khachaturian is generally considered one of the leading composers of the Soviet Union.

Unlike Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian was "entirely a creation of the Soviet musical and dance establishment".

Josef Woodard, writing for the Los Angeles Times, suggests that Aram Khachaturian has long been considered a "lighter-weight participant among 20th-century composers", while classic music broadcaster Norman Gilliland describes him as a "major" composer of the 20th century.

Tim Ashley wrote in The Guardian in 2009 that Aram Khachaturian's popularity fell in the West, because of his image as one of Soviet music's "yes-men".

One of the "modern icons of Armenian pride", Aram Khachaturian is considered a national treasure, and is celebrated by the Armenian people "as a famous son who earned world-wide recognition".

Aram Khachaturian was the most renowned Armenian composer of the 20th century, and the most famous representative of Soviet Armenian culture.

Aram Khachaturian has been described as "by far the most important Armenian composer", the "Armenian Tchaikovsky", and deemed a key figure in 20th-century Armenian culture.

Aram Khachaturian remains the only Armenian composer to rise to international significance.

Aram Khachaturian is one of the two composers depicted on the Armenian currency.