Makar Ekmalyan

Makar Ekmalyan was an Armenian composer, conductor, pedagogue, and folklorist, a pupil of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and a classic of Armenian music who played a significant role in the development of Armenian musical art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During his lifetime, his music was published in Germany and Austria.

He was born in Vagharshapat and graduated from the theological seminary in Echmiadzin in 1872. In 1873 and 1874 he studied Armenian musical notation with N. Tashchyan and took part in the recording and publication of collections of ancient Armenian sacred chants. From 1874 he taught singing and the theory of Armenian music at the Gevorgyan Theological Academy.

In 1888 he graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied composition and orchestration with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Ekmalyan maintained creative ties with Anton Rubinstein, Mily Balakirev, and Anatoly Lyadov. His work was also highly valued by Giuseppe Verdi, Camille Saint-Saens, and many other well-known European musicians.

From 1891 to 1902 he taught at the Nersisyan School in Tiflis, where he created a first-rate male choral chapel. In 1893 and 1894 he served as rector of the Tiflis Music School. Among his students were well-known Armenian singers and composers, including Anton Mailian, Komitas, and Armen Tigranian.

His principal works include the cantata The Wanderings of the Rose, based on a tale by M. Gorn and written in 1888, and Patarag, an expanded lyric-epic liturgy for a cappella choir, published in Leipzig in 1892 and in Vienna in 1896. He also wrote symphonic overtures, choral works, romances, piano pieces, harmonizations of sacred melodies, and choral arrangements of folk songs in various genres.

Ekmalyan died in Tiflis. His memory has been preserved in Armenia by the naming of a street in Yerevan after him.

Connections

This figure has 1 connection in the Music Lineage catalog.