Anton Mayilian

Anton Mayilian was an Armenian Soviet composer, conductor, teacher, choirmaster, librettist, prose writer, publisher, folklorist, and music and public figure. He was born in Tbilisi on March 28, 1880, and attended the Nersisian School there. He studied at the Tbilisi Teachers’ Seminary with M. Yekmalian and H. Kara-Murza, then studied composition with N. D. Nikolayev at the Tbilisi Music School from 1900 to 1903.

Mayilian began composing in 1905 and taught singing at the Tbilisi Teachers’ Seminary in 1906. He moved to Baku that year and founded the city’s first workers’ choir in 1908. From 1910 to 1917, he published the Armenian monthly journal Theatre and Music, which addressed the development of music in the East. He taught music in Tbilisi from 1918 to 1919 and returned to Baku in 1920. From 1925, he led the music section of Baku’s Armenian House of Art. He also collected the musical folklore of the peoples of the Caucasus and Transcaucasia.

His works include the operas Gulli (1930) and Safa (1933), as well as children’s operas such as Grandmother Gulnaz’s Tale (1906), Beautiful Spring (1925), and The Wizard, the Rose and the Worm (1928). His other stage works included the ballet The Indian Beauty (1941), musical dramas including Gikor (1923), and musical comedies including The English Bridegroom (1919) and Molla Nasreddin (1940). He also wrote music for theatrical productions, including Othello and Don Quixote. His prose works included the novel Armen (1900) and the stories The Orphan (1897) and Sad Moments (1900).

Mayilian received the title of Honored Artist of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic in 1930 and the Order of the Badge of Honour in 1938 for his contributions to Azerbaijani opera and music. He died in Baku on April 20, 1942, and was buried there on April 24.