Zakaria Paliashvili was a Georgian composer, teacher, and musical public figure, regarded as a leading representative of Georgian classical music. He was born on 16 August 1871 in Kutaisi, the son of a church-choir singer. Six of the family’s eighteen children became professional musicians.
He received his first musical education at the school attached to a Catholic church, where he learned singing and organ playing. He also studied piano with F. Mizandari. After his family moved to Tbilisi, he attended the music college, studying French horn and composition theory with Nikolai Klenovsky. From 1900 to 1903, he studied composition with Sergei Taneyev at the Moscow Conservatory; these studies brought him closer to Russian musical culture and developed his compositional technique.
Paliashvili was one of the founders of the Georgian Philharmonic Society. Between 1908 and 1917, he led the choir, orchestra, and music school established by the society. His principal works include the operas Abesalom and Eteri (1919) and Daisi (1923), whose music was used for the modern national anthem of Georgia. He also composed the opera Latavra (1927) and a Solemn Cantata (1927).
He collected and notated about 300 Georgian folk songs, publishing part of the collection in 1910 as A Collection of Georgian Folk Songs. In 1925 he was named People’s Artist of the Georgian SSR. Paliashvili died on 6 October 1933 in Tbilisi and was buried in the square beside the Tbilisi Opera Theatre, near the grave of Vano Sarajishvili.
In 1937, the Georgian Opera and Ballet Theatre was named after Paliashvili. A state museum dedicated to him was opened in Tbilisi, and streets in Volgograd, Batumi, Kutaisi, and Tbilisi bear his name. His portrait appears on the two-lari Georgian banknote.