Arno Babadjanyan Composer Date of Birth: 22.01.1921 Country: Armenia

Biography of Arno Babajanian

Arno Arutyunovich Babajanian was a composer and pianist, People's Artist of the USSR, and laureate of the State Prize of the USSR. He was born in 1921 in Yerevan. Although there were no professional musicians in his family, his father, a mathematics teacher, played the flute excellently. At the age of 3-4, Arno attempted to play on an old accordion and years later, he loved to tell the story of his first encounter with a real composer in kindergarten: "Once a visitor came to us. This person asked us to sing to understand who had a sense of hearing. I also sang and clapped to the rhythm. This person listened and said that I should engage in music. Later, I found out that this person's name was Aram Ilyich Khachaturian." He wrote his first composition, "Pioneer March," at the age of 9.

In 1928, Babajanian joined a group of talented children at the Yerevan Conservatory. In 1933, he won the first prize at the all-republican competition of young musicians by splendidly performing Beethoven's "Fourth Sonata" and Mendelssohn's "Rondo Capriccioso." In 1936, he began taking lessons from Vardges Talian (son of the famous Armenian folk singer Sheram) and Sergey Barkhudaryan. In 1938, Babajanian moved to Moscow and immediately enrolled in the final year of the Gnesin Music School, where he studied piano under Elena Gnesina and composition under Vissarion Shebalin. In 1947, Arno Babajanian graduated from the composition department of the Yerevan Conservatory, and in 1948, he completed his studies as an external student at the Moscow Conservatory, majoring in piano under Konstantin Igumnov. He also studied composition with Georgy Litinsky. Starting from 1950, A. Babajanian taught at the Yerevan Conservatory.

He dedicated a lot of attention to composing music in various genres, including the "Heroic Ballad" for piano, concertos for violin and cello, piano trio, and a quartet dedicated to the memory of Dmitry Shostakovich. However, the song became the defining genre for the composer. "The Song of First Love" and "Yerevan" (from the movie "The Song of First Love," 1951) quickly gained popularity. In 1956, Babajanian moved to Moscow. He collaborated extensively and productively with poet Robert Rozhdestvensky and singer Muslim Magomaev ("Memory," "Call Me," "Make a Wish," "Thank You," "Wedding"). He also achieved phenomenal success with songs written in collaboration with Yevgeny Yevtushenko ("Don't Hurry," "Ferris Wheel," "Your Footprints"), Andrei Voznesensky ("Year of Love," "Moscow River," "Bring Back My Music"), Leonid Derbenyov ("The Best City on Earth"). The brilliant composer also made significant contributions to instrumental jazz and music-theatrical genres. He composed musicals such as "Uncle Bagdasar," "Northern Bride," and "My Heart is in the Mountains."

Unfortunately, Arno Babajanian is no longer with us. He passed away in 1983. However, we are left with what any creator wants to leave behind - his creations: songs, instrumental pieces, and symphonic works. The Babajanian Charitable Foundation, led by his son Araik, has been established. This foundation supports young talents and organizes not only evenings but also music festivals dedicated to Arno Babajanian. Opening one of these festivals, the renowned poet Andrey Dementyev said, "I worked a lot with Babajanian. He was so in love with life, he had so much humor, humanity, that music itself was born from this kindness. He had an intuitive sense of beauty. Arno Babajanian remains a composer of light and joy."