Romanos Melikyan
Romanos Melikyan was an Armenian composer, musical public figure, choirmaster, and music educator. He was born in Kizlyar on October 1, 1883. He graduated from the Rostov Music College in 1905, then studied in Moscow with Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov and Boleslav Yavorsky through 1907. From 1910 to 1914, he studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Vasily Kalafati and Maximilian Steinberg.
In 1908, Melikyan helped organize the Armenian Music League in Tbilisi. He founded a music studio in Yerevan in 1921; it became a conservatory in 1923. He was the first artistic director of the Yerevan Opera and Ballet Theatre, now named for Alexander Spendiarov.
Melikyan is described as the creator of the Armenian art song. His vocal music and distinctive harmonic language influenced Armenian music. He also contributed to the development of mass songs and arranged many Armenian folk songs.
His works include piano pieces and songs for voice and piano, collected in the cycles Autumn Lines (1907–1913), Emeralds (1918; published in 1928), and Sparkles (1922; published in 1949). His song collections include Songs of the New Way of Life, Red Army Songs, and Pioneer Songs; his folk-song arrangements were collected as Sketches. He died in Yerevan on March 30, 1935.