Khachatur Avetissyan

Khachatur Avetisyan, a leading Armenian exponent of the kanun, the Middle Eastern zither, has raised the performance practices of this plucked instrument to unparalleled heights. Born in 1926, in Leninakan (now Gyumri), Armenia, Khachatur Avetisyan studied composition under the renowned composer Edvard Mirzoyan at the Komitas State Conservatory in Yerevan. He received the gold (1951) and the silver medals (1956) at the International Youth Competitions, first in Berlin and then in Moscow. Avetisyan devoted his creative life to researching the roots of Armenian folk music. In 1958 he was appointed artistic director of the Armenian State Dance Ensemble and in 1968 that of the Tatul Altunyan Song and Dance Ensemble where his own instrumental and vocal music became a staple of the repertory. He founded the folk music department at the State Conservatory in 1978, where a large number of folk instrumentalists are trained. He died in Yerevan in 1996.