Otar Gordeli (18 November 1928 – 6 December 1994) was a Georgian composer, film composer and music educator, and one of the founders of jazz in Georgia. He was named Honored Artist of the Georgian SSR in 1966.
From 1938 to 1946, Gordeli studied piano with E. Chernyavskaya and composition with Andria Balanchivadze at the Tbilisi music school. He graduated from the Tbilisi Conservatory in 1951, having studied piano with Anastasia Virsaladze and composition with Iona Tuskiya. In 1954 he completed postgraduate composition studies under Semyon Bogatyrev at the Moscow Conservatory.
Gordeli taught at the Tbilisi Conservatory, becoming an associate professor in 1972 and a professor in 1982. From 1967 to 1990, he chaired the Music and Choreographic Society of Georgia. He later served as director of the Zakaria Paliashvili House-Museum in Tbilisi.
His works include the operetta Fly, My Swallow (1971); the symphonic cantata Colchis (1948); the symphonic poems The Seasons (1954) and What the Kura Tells (1961); a Symphony (1964); two symphonic suites (1963 and 1969); Festive Overture (1957); Youth Overture (1959); the symphonic dance Kartuli (1962); Passacaglia and Fugue (1966); a Piano Concerto (1952); a Flute Concertino (1959); a Piano Quintet (1950); a Piano Suite (1959); and a Sonatina (1961). He also wrote romances to poems by Georgian poets, as well as music for stage productions and films.
Gordeli was buried in the Didube Pantheon.