14 Facts About Sulkhan Tsintsadze

Sulkhan Fyodorovich Tsintsadze was a Georgian composer known for his chamber music and his film scores.

In 1937, Fyodor Tsintsadze was arrested as part of the Great Purge.

In 1942, Sulkhan Tsintsadze began formal studies in the orchestra department of the Tbilisi State Conservatory with cellist Konstantin Minyar-Beloruchev, who died in January 1944.

Sulkhan Tsintsadze was the founding cellist of the original State String Quartet of Georgia, of which he was a member from 1944 to 1946.

From 1945 to 1953, Sulkhan Tsintsadze attended the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he studied cello with Semyon Matveyevich Kozolupov until 1950 and composition with Semyon Bogatyryov until 1953.

The young Sulkhan Tsintsadze was spotted by fellow Georgian composer Nikolai Narimanidze, who saw him as the future of Georgian national music at a time when the Soviet Union emphasized the contributions of national minority composers.

In 1949, Sulkhan Tsintsadze presented to the Union of Russian composers his second string quartet, two viola pieces, and romance settings of poetry by Aleksandr Pushkin.

Sulkhan Tsintsadze composed a number of film scores during the 1950s and 1960s, including those for The Dragonfly, Bashi-Achuki, A Woman's Burden, Maia Tskneteli, and A Soldier's Father.

Sulkhan Tsintsadze wrote a separate set of 24 preludes for cello and piano in 1980.

Sulkhan Tsintsadze taught an orchestration class at the Tbilisi State Conservatory from 1963 and became a professor of orchestration from 1973; between 1965 and 1984, he was the rector of the conservatory.

Sulkhan Tsintsadze was awarded the People's Artist of Georgia and People's Artist of the USSR titles, the USSR Stalin Prize for his Quartet No 2 and his 3 Miniatures, and the Zakharia Paliashvili Prize and Shota Rustaveli Prize from the Georgian government.

Sulkhan Tsintsadze is buried in the Didube Pantheon in Tbilisi.

Sulkhan Tsintsadze's son Irakli, born 1964, is a composer in his own right who studied at the Tbilisi State Conservatory from 1976 to 1986, while his father was rector, and later with Theo Brandmuller.

Sulkhan Tsintsadze now teaches analysis and polyphony at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts.