Edgar Hovhannisyan
Edgar Sergeyevich Hovhannisyan (14 January 1930 – 28 December 1998) was an Armenian, Soviet composer, film composer, and music teacher. He was born in Yerevan and died there at the age of 68; another source gives 27 December as his date of death. He was buried at Tokhmak Cemetery in Yerevan.
Hovhannisyan graduated in composition from the Yerevan Conservatory in 1953, where he studied with Grigor Yeghiazaryan. He completed postgraduate study at the Moscow Conservatory in 1957 under Aram Khachaturian.
From 1956 to 1973, he served as deputy chairman of the board of the Union of Composers of the Armenian SSR. He was artistic director and director of the Alexander Spendiaryan Armenian Opera and Ballet Theatre from 1962 to 1968, then artistic director of the State Ensemble of Armenian Folk Song and Dance from 1970 to 1974. From 1976 he was artistic director of the Yerevan Armconcert association.
Between 1979 and 1985, Hovhannisyan was music director of Armenian State Television and Radio and artistic director of its Chamber Choir. He became professor and rector of the Yerevan Conservatory, serving from 1986 to 1991. He was also a member of the Union of Cinematographers of the Armenian SSR.
His stage works include the ballets Marmar (1957), Blue Nocturne (1964), The Eternal Idol (1966), the ballet-oratorio Antuni (1969), the opera-ballet David of Sassoun (1976), and Masquerade (1982), based on music by Aram Khachaturian. His opera Journey to Arzrum, after Alexander Pushkin, dates from 1987.
Hovhannisyan also wrote cantatas, orchestral works, chamber music, choral pieces, songs, piano, violin, and cello pieces, romances, arrangements of Armenian folk songs and dances, and music for dramatic productions. His works include four string quartets, a 1968 concerto for chamber orchestra, Concerto-Baroque (1983), and the symphonic poem Golgotha (1993). His film scores include For Honor (1956), Northern Rainbow (1960), The Road (1961), Emergency Assignment (1965), An Armenian Fresco (1972), The Last Feat of Kamo (1973), Star of Hope (1978), and Catastrophe (1993), written jointly with Yuri Harutyunyan.
He received the State Prize of the Armenian SSR in 1967 and the USSR State Prize in 1979. His other distinctions included the title Honored Art Worker of the Armenian SSR (1962), People’s Artist of the Armenian SSR (1972), People’s Artist of the USSR (1986), the Aram Khachaturian Prize (1984), and honorary citizenship of Titograd and Yerevan.