Anushavan Ter-Gevondyan

Anushavan Ter-Gevondyan was an Armenian and Soviet composer, musicologist, and folklorist. He was born on March 8, 1887, in Tiflis and died on June 6, 1961, in Yerevan. He was a student of Mikhail Gnesin, Anatoly Lyadov, and Alexander Glazunov, and in 1953 he was named People's Artist of the Armenian SSR.

In his youth he took composition lessons from Mikhail Gnesin. In 1915 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of Saint Petersburg University and at the same time from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. There he studied harmony with Anatoly Lyadov, composition with Alexander Glazunov, orchestration with Maximilian Steinberg, counterpoint with Vasily Kalafati, and formal analysis with Jazeps Vitols.

Ter-Gevondyan taught music-theoretical disciplines at the conservatories of Transcaucasia. From 1917 to 1925 he taught at the Tiflis Conservatory. From 1926 to 1959, with interruptions, he worked at the Yerevan Conservatory, where he became professor in 1934, served as director from 1926 to 1930, and from 1948 headed the department of music theory and composition. From 1934 to 1938 he also taught at the Baku Conservatory.

He also appeared as a conductor and took part in folklore expeditions. Ter-Gevondyan wrote books and articles on Armenian, Russian, and Western European music. He was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour in 1939 for outstanding services in the development of Armenian theatrical and musical art, and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour in 1956.

His work, varied in genre, was connected with the folk musical art of Armenia and was distinguished by modal individuality, rhythmic inventiveness, and colorful orchestration. Some of his compositions were based on the development of folklore material that he had collected himself.

Among his works are the piece In the Rays of the Sun (1950); for soloists, chorus, and symphony orchestra, the vocal-symphonic poem The Birth of Vahagn to words by O. Hovhannisyan (1922) and the ballad In Memory of the 26 Commissars (1957); for symphony orchestra, the suite Shirak Etudes (1917), the Suite on Folk Themes (1954), the poem Akhtamar (1923), and the rhapsody Rast (1935). He also wrote pieces for wind orchestra, works for piano, string and wind instruments, compositions for voice and piano, choruses, romances, and songs to texts by Hovhannes Tumanyan, A. Vshtuni, Avetik Isahakyan, A. Saturyan, Vahan Teryan, and others, as well as music for dramatic performances and arrangements of Armenian folk songs.