Alexander Mnatsakanyan
Alexander Mnatsakanyan was a Soviet composer of Armenian origin and a teacher. He was born in Yerevan on September 3, 1936, and studied violin at the Tchaikovsky School in Yerevan.
In 1961, he graduated from the Leningrad State Conservatory, where he studied composition with O. A. Yevlakhov and violin in the orchestral faculty. He completed postgraduate study there in 1964 under Dmitri Shostakovich.
Mnatsakanyan taught at the Leningrad Conservatory from 1965. He became a professor in 1988, chaired the Department of Special Composition and Improvisation in 1992, and served as dean of the theoretical and composition faculty from 1973. He was named an Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1984 and received the Dmitri Shostakovich Prize.
His works include three symphonies, a passacaglia for organ, a quartet, a flute sonata, and chamber and choral music. His film scores include Two Tickets for a Daytime Session (1966), Black Crackers (1971), The Circle (1972), Docker (1973), Sergeant of the Police (1974), and Memory (1975). He died in Saint Petersburg on January 8, 2013, and was buried at Smolensk Cemetery.