“the October Revolution fundamentally changed my whole life and, if I have really grown into a serious artist, then I am indebted only to the people and the Soviet Government.”
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Aram Khachaturian
Aram Ilyich Khachaturian was a Soviet Armenian composer and conductor. He is considered one of the leading Soviet composers.
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politics · Soviet Armenian composer (1903–1978) · classical composer · conductor · music educator · choreographer · musicologist · university teacher · pianist · film score composer · pedagogue · politician · also Aram Khachaturian, Aram Ilyich Khachaturian, Aram E. Khachaturyan, Aram Ilich Khachaturian, Khachaturian
Born 24 May 1903 · Died 1 May 1978 · Q152293
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2026· 1 entry
2017· 1 entry
And in front of an arts school named after him in Nizhny Novgorod in August 2021
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2013· 1 entry
UNESCO inscribed a collection of Khachaturian's handwritten notes and film music in the Memory of the World international register
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2009· 1 entry
That Khachaturian's popularity fell in the West, because of his image as one of Soviet music's "yes-men"
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2004· 1 entry
TV Kultura, Russia's government-owned art channel, made a documentary on Khachaturian entitled Century of Aram Khachaturian (Век Арама Хачатуряна)
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2003· 3 entries
An 83-minute-long documentary about Khachaturian with unique footage was directed by Peter Rosen and narrated by Eric Bogosian
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Conductor Marin Alsop opined that Khachaturian is "very underperformed" and "somewhat underrated․"
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That during his lifetime Khachaturian was "more popular than Shostakovich and rivaled only by Prokofiev — but these days it's different
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1998· 1 entry
The Central Bank of Armenia issued 50-dram banknotes depicting Khachaturian's portrait and the Yerevan Opera Theater on the obverse and an episode from the ballet Gayane and Mount Ararat on the reverse
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1996· 1 entry
That Khachaturian has not been "certified as [a] great artist by the promoters of classical music
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1985· 2 entries
That Khachaturian's "reputation has sagged"
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The Yerevan Studio produced another TV documentary on him
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1982· 1 entry
That composers of scores of "independently" produced Japanese films are "ordered to turn out music" that "strongly echo" Khachaturian and other Soviet composers
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1978· 3 entries
Died 1978-05-01.
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“I hope it will live on for decades to come,”
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That Khachaturian "frankly composed popular music" and that after being exposed to his work it becomes evident that it is mostly "formula writing"
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1977· 1 entry
A year before his death, Studio Ekran made a documentary on Khachaturian
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1974· 2 entries
Awarded Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1974).
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Awarded Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (1974).
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1973· 4 entries
Awarded Hero of Socialist Labour (1973).
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Awarded Order of Lenin (1973).
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Awarded People's Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR (1973).
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Joined eleven Soviet composers in condemning the nuclear physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov after he met with Western correspondents
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1972· 1 entry
Awarded Polish Cultural Merit Order (1972).
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1971· 3 entries
Awarded Order of the October Revolution (1971).
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Awarded USSR State Prize (1971).
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Awarded Order of Cyril and Methodius (1971).
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1970· 1 entry
Awarded Order of Labour (1970).
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1968· 3 entries
New York Post music critic Harriett Johnson argued that while some may describe Khachaturian's style as "pop," she praised "the individuality of his melodies, infiltrated as they are with Oriental flavor of his Armenian
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New York Post music critic Harriett Johnson characterized him as "sturdy, stocky and youthful
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Wrote that "Even at his best he was a minor figure, and his music these days has little to offer
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1967· 1 entry
Named after him in 1996), Yerevan, Martuni, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Watertown, Massachusetts, U
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1966· 1 entry
Awarded Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1966).
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1963· 2 entries
Awarded People's artist of the Georgian SSR (1963).
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Awarded Order of Lenin (1963).
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1959· 1 entry
Awarded Lenin Prize for Spartacus (1959).
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1957· 1 entry
Khachaturian became the Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers, a position he held until his death
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1955· 1 entry
Awarded People's Artist of the Armenian SSR (1955).
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1954· 2 entries
Awarded People's Artist of the USSR (1954).
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Khachaturian became a mouthpiece, along with Ilya Ehrenburg, to "assure Soviet intellectuals that the ideological controls imposed by the draconic Zhdanov decrees of 1946–48 would be at least temporarily lifted
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1950· 4 entries
Awarded State Stalin Prize, 1st degree for The Battle of Stalingrad (1950).
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Khachaturian began conducting and started teaching composition at his alma maters—the Gnessin Institute (since 1950), and later at the Moscow Conservatory (since 1951)
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Was awarded the Stalin prize for the score of The Battle of Stalingrad (1949)
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Began working on his third and last ballet, Spartacus (1950–54), which later proved to be his last internationally acclaimed work
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1947· 2 entries
Awarded People's Artist of the RSFSR (1947).
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That Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have "borrowed" Khachaturian "on occasion for special research in national music
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1946· 1 entry
Awarded State Stalin Prize, 1st degree (1946).
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1945· 2 entries
Won Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1945).
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Awarded Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1945).
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1944· 4 entries
Awarded Honored art worker of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1944).
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Won Medal "For the Defence of the Caucasus" (1944).
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Won Medal "For the Defence of Moscow" (1944).
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Khachaturian composed the largely symbolic Anthem of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
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1943· 1 entry
Awarded State Stalin Prize, 1st degree for Gayane (ballet) (1943).
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1942· 1 entry
At the height of the Second World War, Khachaturian reworked Happiness into the ballet Gayane
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1941· 1 entry
Awarded Stalin Prize for Violin Concerto (1941).
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1939· 2 entries
Awarded Order of Lenin (1939).
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Made a six-month trip to his native Armenia "to make a thorough study of Armenian musical folklore and to collect folk-song and dance tunes" for his first ballet, Happiness
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1938· 1 entry
Awarded Honored Art Worker of the Armenian SSR (1938).
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1936· 1 entry
Studied at Moscow Conservatory (1934–1936).
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1935· 1 entry
"drew the attention of prominent conductors and was soon performed by the best Soviet orchestras" and was admired by Shostakovich
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1934· 2 entries
And went on to complete his graduate work in 1936
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Studied at Moscow Conservatory (1929–1934).
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1929· 2 entries
Studied at Gnessin State Musical College (1929).
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Khachaturian entered the Moscow Conservatory to study composition under Nikolai Myaskovsky and orchestration under Sergei Vasilenko
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1925· 1 entry
Mikhail Gnessin started a composition class at the institute, which Khachaturian joined
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1922· 1 entry
Simultaneously studying biology at Moscow State University
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1921· 2 entries
Following the Sovietization of the Caucasus
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The eighteen-year-old 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
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1917· 1 entry
The Bolsheviks rose to power in Russia in the October Revolution
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1903· 1 entry
Born 1903-05-24.
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