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(b Santa Cruz, Manila, May 14, 1876; d Manila, April 23, 1944). Filipino composer, conductor and violin teacher. At an early age he studied solfège, composition, conducting and the violin with Ladislao Bonus. He played the violin in the Rizal Orchestra in his youth, and in 1910 he founded the Oriental Orchestra; in the early 1920s he conducted many zarzuelas and operas. He was the moving spirit behind the Manila Chamber Music Society, of which he became director in 1921. A well-known violin teacher, he also excelled as a nationalist composer. Among his works are the zarzuelas Ang sampaguita (‘The Sampaguita Flower’), Anak ng dagat (‘Son of the Sea’), Luha’t dugo (‘Tears and Blood’), Ang masamang kaugalian (‘The Bad Traits’), Delinquente and Declaracion de amor. Other compositions include a cantata, O! dios sa kalangitan (‘O God in Heaven’), Ibong adarna (‘The Adarna Bird’), a coloratura song, and Kundiman...

(b Tagoloan, Oriental Misamis, July 13, 1922; d Fresno, CA, June 5, 1991). Filipina composer and conductor. She studied music at Lourdes College, the piano at St Scholastica’s College and composition at the Philippine Women’s University (MM 1957). Later she attended the Labunski School of Composition in Ohio, the Eastman School and the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. A nun of the Order of the Virgin Mary, she taught music theory and composition, conducted fund-raising concerts, and travelled widely to take part in international music conferences. In 1977 she moved to the USA, teaching at Kansas University and St Pius Seminary in Kentucky before moving to Fremont, California; in 1980 she was elected president of the Philippine Foundation of Performing Arts in America. Among the honours she received were the Republic Culture Heritage Award (1967) and the Philippines’ Independence Day Award (1973). She produced over 300 compositions and some published music textbooks. Her style is marked by neo-classical and Impressionist features, with quartal harmonies, added-note chords, pentatonic and modal scales....

(b San Miguel, Bulacan, Feb 7, 1893; d Manila, March 21, 1934). Filipino composer, conductor and teacher. As a child he had violin lessons from his father, and in 1901 he wrote his first composition, Ang unang buko (‘The First Fruit’), a waltz. He was sent to study at the Liceo de Manila and he learnt to play the piano, but at the same time he had to take various jobs to support himself and his family. In 1916 he entered the Conservatory of the University of the Philippines, and in the next year he composed a march, U. P. Beloved, which won first prize in an open competition. He studied with Victoriano Carreon (singing), José Silos (bandurria), Bonifacio Abdon (violin) and José Estella (piano); he received a teacher’s certificate at the conservatory in 1921, and in 1923 he pursued postgraduate studies there.

The piano concerto, which he wrote for these later courses, was the first concerto written by a Filipino. From the same period are ...

(b Yerevan, March 8, 1932). Armenian cellist and teacher. She studied first at the Yerevan Central Music School (where her teachers were K. Khizanov and L. Grigoryan) and then with Grigoryan at the Komitas Conservatory in Yerevan (1950–53). She continued her studies with Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatory (1953–6) and became a laureate of the H. Wihan International Cello Competition (1955). In 1956 she made her début as a soloist with the Armenian PO, and has performed regularly with the orchestra since then. In 1960 she became professor of cello at the Yerevan Conservatory. She has performed widely in Russia, the USA, Canada and Western Europe, as a soloist and during numerous festivals, specializing in 20th-century works, notably those by Armenian composers. She has given premières of some 100 works, a number of which are dedicated to her. Her playing is distinguished by refinement of intonation, a broad range of colour and a strong dramatic impetus....

(b Montevideo, August 4, 1940). Uruguayan composer, musicologist and teacher of Armenian parentage. He studied composition with Tosar (1955–7, 1966–9), the piano with Adela Herrera-Lerena (1945–59), conducting with Jacques Bodmer (1966–9), musicology with Ayestarán (1964–6) and electro-acoustic techniques with Henry Jasa (1961–3). In Buenos Aires he studied at the Instituto Torcuato di Tella with Gandini and Kroepfl (1969), in Venice with Nono (1970), at the Darmstadt summer courses with Ligeti, Aloys Kontarsky, Xenakis, Globokar and Christian Wolff (1970, 1974), and at various of the Latin American Courses for Contemporary Music with Mumma, Rabe and others (1971–89).

Aharonián has been influential as a teacher and as an organizer of activities in music and music education both in Uruguay and abroad. His teaching specializations range from composition, choral conducting and organology to analysis, musical folklore and music and society; he has taught mainly at the Uruguayan National University and the National Institute for Teacher Training, as well as privately. An assiduous participant and lecturer in seminars and workshops in Europe, the Americas and the Philippines, he has been a member of the executive committee of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music and of the presidential council of the ISCM, and the executive secretary of the Latin American Courses for Contemporary Music. He has received numerous awards from Uruguay and other countries for his work as a composer, musicologist and choral conductor, and commissions from France, Poland, Sweden and Germany....

[Georgy]

(b Leningrad [now St Petersburg], May 13, 1932; d Cologne, Oct 31, 2002). Israeli conductor of Soviet birth. He studied at the Leningrad Central School of Music and the Leningrad Conservatory, and also with Natan Rakhlin and Kurt Sanderling. In 1956 he was appointed conductor of the Saratov PO; he also taught at the conservatory there and conducted his first operas. The next year he became conductor at Yaroslav, remaining there until his appointment as chief conductor of the Moscow RSO in 1964; his guest engagements included appearances with the Bol′shoy Ballet. Ahronovich left the USSR in 1972 and became an Israeli citizen. After concerts with the Israel PO he began touring, appearing in London with the RPO and with the New York PO in the USA. He made his operatic début in the West with Otello at Cologne, where he was conductor of the Gürzenich Concerts from ...

(b Istanbul, May 6, 1908; d Ankara, Feb 16, 1999). Turkish composer. He was a member of the Turkish Five, a group of outstanding composers who, from the 1930s, promoted a Western musical style. Akses first played the violin and then took up the cello at the age of 14. He studied harmony with Cemal Reşit Rey at the Istanbul Municipal Conservatory. In 1926 he left for Vienna where he attended Joseph Marx’s harmony, counterpoint and composition classes for advanced students at the Academy. After receiving his diploma in 1931, he went to Prague and studied with Josef Suk and Alois Hába at the Prague Conservatory. He returned to Turkey in 1934 and was appointed a teacher of composition at the Music Teachers School, becoming its director in 1948. He then took a number of official positions: in 1949 he was director general of the Fine Arts Section of the Ministry of Education, then cultural attaché in Berne (...

(Heinz)

(b Berlin, Aug 9, 1915). Israeli composer of German birth. His studies at the Stern Conservatory were halted in 1936 as a result of the Nazi persecution, and in the same year he emigrated to Palestine. There he studied composition with Wolpe and the piano with Irma Wolpe-Schoenberg and Ilona Vince-Kraus. As a student he made his living as a café jazz pianist in Jersualem and established himself as an excellent improviser. From 1945 until his retirement he was a professor at the Rubin Academy of Music, Jerusalem. A highly versatile musician, he taught the piano, the harpsichord, theory, composition and improvisation. He also lectured in the musicology departments of Tel-Aviv University, the Hebrew University, the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, Geneva, and New York University.

One of the diverse group of composers who emigrated from Europe to Palestine during the 1930s, Alexander experienced the tension between the ideological pressure to create a new national style with a nebulous Middle Eastern and folklike orientation, and the urge to keep abreast of current Western music. This tension is reflected in the contrast between the post-Romantic chromaticism of ...

(b Constantinople, 1881; d Chamonix, July 27, 1954). Armenian cellist. He studied with Grützmacher and while a student played chamber music with Brahms and Joachim. At the age of 17 he appeared as the soloist in Strauss's Don Quixote with the composer conducting and scored a triumph; he was then invited to play concertos with Nikisch and Mahler. In 1901 he settled in Paris, where Casals saw some of his fingerings and recognized that Alexanian shared his own, then revolutionary, ideas on technique and interpretation. Many years' collaboration followed, leading to the publication in 1922 of their joint treatise Traité théorique et pratique du violoncelle and in 1929 of Alexanian's analytical edition of the solo cello suites of Bach. Alexanian was professor of the Casals class at the Ecole Normale de Musique from 1921 to 1937, when he left for the USA. His classes in Paris, Baltimore and New York attracted artists and students from all over the world, and his influence extended far beyond his own pupils (among them Maurice Eisenberg and Antonio Janigro) to such cellists as Feuermann, Cassadó, Piatigorsky and Fournier. He was also a conductor of distinction....

(b Tehran, 1951). Iranian tār and setār player, teacher and composer. He studied at the National Music Conservatory in Tehran from the age of 13 and then at the University of Tehran from 1970 to 1974; his teachers included Habibollah Salehi, Ali Akbar Shahnazi, Nur Ali Borumand, Abdollah Davami, Mahmud Karimi, Yusef Forutan, Said Hormozi, Dariush Safvate and Hooshang Zarif. From 1971 Alizadeh studied and taught at the influential Centre for the Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music in Tehran; he later taught music theory and tār at the University of Tehran. In 1976 he began his association with Iranian National Radio and Television, working as a soloist, a composer and a conductor. He co-founded the Chavosh Cultural Artistic Centre in 1977 and the Aref Ensemble in 1983; he also worked with the Sheyda Ensemble. In the early 1980s he studied musicology and composition at the University of Berlin. In ...

(b Istanbul, March 11, 1906; d Ankara, July 27, 1978). Turkish composer and conductor. He had his first music lessons from his mother. He showed a precocious talent for playing the qānūn and at 16 he composed a musical play in traditional Turkish monophonic style. In 1927 he went to Vienna and studied composition with Joseph Marx at the Academy of Music and conducting with Oswald Kabasta. He returned to Turkey in 1932, was appointed conductor to the Istanbul City Theatre Orchestra and taught history of music at the Istanbul Conservatory. In 1936 he became assistant conductor of the Ankara Presidential SO, taught piano at the State Conservatory and was an assistant to Carl Abert at the Ankara State Opera. In 1946 he was appointed conductor of the Presidential PO and held the post until 1952, when he left because of a nervous breakdown, though he continued to teach at the conservatory and to appear as guest conductor in Ankara and with the Vienna SO and the Stuttgart RSO. One of the Turkish Five, Alnar showed strong attraction in his works to the rhythmic and melodic patterns of Turkish monophonic music. (...

(b Kelantan, Malaysia, 1940). Malaysian shadow puppeteer. From an early age he became interested in wayang kulit Siam, which is associated principally with the state of Kelantan and is the most important of Malaysia's four types of shadow play. He received his early training as a dalang (puppeteer) from his father and at the age of 11 created his own experimental wayang kulit Siam troupe with a few friends.

He later studied wayang kulit Siam with Pak Awang Lah, the most famous Kelantan dalang. After an initial lack of success, he managed to impress the international audience of scholars at the 1969 conference Traditional Drama and Music of Southeast Asia, held in Kuala Lumpur. This exposure enabled him to travel overseas. The Seri Setia Wayang Kulit troupe, with Amat as leader, visited ten European countries in 1971 under the sponsorship of UNESCO and the Malaysian Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism, giving performances in 31 cities. Aside from returning to Europe and performing in several Asian countries, Amat has also performed in Russia and Turkey (...

(b Warsaw, Aug 8, 1909; d Yakum Kibbutz, Israel, Dec 18, 1993). Israeli composer and teacher of Russian descent. He received his early musical education in Moscow. In 1924 he emigrated with his family to Palestine, where he continued his musical studies with Shlomo Rozovsky (1928–9). He began to compose in 1930. From 1934 to 1936 he studied music education at Trinity College, London, and composition with Bantock and Rowley; at the same time he also studied at Tonic Sol-fa College, London. With the formation of the Israeli Army, he was appointed First Officer for music, founding the orchestras of both the army and the cadets. In 1949 he became the central inspector for music education at the Ministry of Education, a post he held until his retirement in 1975.

Amiran was one of the Ereṣ Yisrael composers who developed the character of what became known as typical Israeli folksong. His vast number of songs (around 600), many of which set biblical texts, were published in a wide array of pamphlets and song books. The most notable of these include: the nursery songs ...

(b Vladikavkaz, Feb 23, 1878; d Tbilisi, Aug 13, 1953). Georgian composer, musicologist and teacher. An academician of the Georgian Academy of Sciences and Laureate of the USSR State Prize (1950), Arakishvili is one of the founders of the Georgian School of composition. In the period 1894–1901 he attended the school of music and drama (attached to the Moscow Philharmonic Society) where he studied composition with A. Il′insky, and theory with S. Kruglikov (1894–1901), later improving his compositional technique with Grechaninov (1910–11). In 1917 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Archaeology. In 1897 he had started writing for the Russian and the Georgian press on musical matters, in 1901 became a member of the musico-ethnological commission at Moscow University, and in 1907 a member of the Georgian Society for Literature and Art in Moscow. He was an associate of the foremost Russian composers of the day – such as Taneyev, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Arensky and Pyatnitsky – and was one of the organizers of the People’s Conservatory in Moscow (...

[Sergey Vasilyevich]

(b Tbilisi, Georgia, 26 Aug/Sept 8, 1887; d Tbilisi, Oct 29, 1972). Georgian composer and teacher. He began his music studies with the pianist Karakhovna in 1898; he then studied the piano with Stakhovsky and Truskovsky, and theory and solfège with Paliashvili at the Tbilisi Music Institute (1900–07). He won by competition a place at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik (1907–9) and later studied with Kalafati, Steinberg and Vītols at the St Petersburg Conservatory (1910–15). Subsequently, as a teacher at the conservatories of Tbilisi (1923–54) and Yerevan (1934–37, professor 1941), he instructed many of the leading composers of Armenia and Georgia including Aleksandr Arutyunian and Muradeli. He also appeared as a pianist in Moscow, Leningrad and Caucasian republics. His honours included the titles People’s Artist of the Armenian SSR, Honoured Artist of the Georgian SSR, and the Order of Lenin....

(b Pontiac, MI, April 24, 1921; d Alpena, MI, July 26, 2010). American conductor and music educator. The son of Armenian immigrants, his childhood was spent in Dearborn, Michigan. As a youth, he often observed conductors, such as Fritz Reiner and Serge Koussevitzky, rehearse the Detroit SO; by the time he was a senior in high school he was studying privately with the symphony’s principal trumpet player, Leonard B. Smith. After studies at Wayne State University (BME 1943), Begian began teaching at Mackenzie HS in Detroit, then was drafted into the army. He returned to Wayne State after the war (MS 1947) and studied conducting at Tanglewood. He developed one of the finest high school bands in the country at Detroit’s Cass Technical High School (1947–64) while studying with William Revelli at the University of Michigan (EdD 1964). His university band conducting career included appointments at Wayne State (...

(b Tehran, 1905; d Tehran, 1976/7). Iranian musician and music teacher. He was brought up in a household frequented by musicians, poets and artists. His formal musical training started at the age of 12 in the form of tār lessons with Qolam Hossein Darvish Khan (1872–1926). In 1922, Borumand was sent to Germany where he attended secondary school. There he became familiar with European music and learnt the piano for two years. He continued to pursue his interest in Iranian music while studying medicine. However, failing eyesight and eventual blindness forced him to return to Iran in 1938, and after this he devoted his life to Iranian music. Over the next 30 years he led a secluded existence, studying tār and setār with a number of prominent masters, including Esmail Qahremani (b 1907), Mussa Ma'rufi (1889–1964) and Habib Somai (...

(b Santa Maria, Bulacan, Oct 14, 1929). Filipino composer, conductor and teacher. He studied at the universities of S Tomas and Centro Escolar, and at the Gregorian Institute. Teaching appointments followed at the Philippine Women’s University, St Scholastica’s College and other institutions. For a time he was the organist of Manila Cathedral, and he has also been active as the director of several bands and of the glee club of Ateneo University, Loyola. He became dean of the Centro Escolar University Conservatory and received the Republic Cultural Heritage Award twice (1964, 1972); he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Philippine Women's University in 1989. His compositions, often based on Philippine legend and history, use Romantic, Impressionist and contemporary idioms.

(selective list)

[Hwang Pyŏnggi]

(b Seoul, May 31, 1936). Korean composer and performer of the kayagŭm, a 12-string long zither. After learning the kayagŭm with Kim Yŏngyun, Kim Yundŏk and Shim Sanggŏn, he became an instructor at Seoul National University and the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts. In 1974 he joined the music faculty at Ewha Women’s University. He has won national prizes as both a performer and composer, and has been influential as a board member of the Cultural Properties Management Committee. He led South Korean performance troupes sent to North Korea. Abroad, he has been artist-in-residence at the universities of Hawaii and Washington, and a visiting scholar at Harvard. He has established his own school of the traditional genre sanjo, publishing a related score and CD in 1998.

He claims, with some justification, to have composed the first contemporary music for a Korean instrument in 1963. This was ...

(b Constantinople, 1837; d Izmir, March 23, 1898). Armenian composer, conductor and teacher. He studied with G. Yeranian and Mangioni at Constantinople, then at the Milan Conservatory (1861–4). On his return to Turkey he took part in the activities of the Armenian Musical Society, published the journal K‘nar Haykakan (‘The Armenian Lyre’) with G. Yeranian, gave lectures and concerts, organized a small orchestra and worked with the Gusanergakan Music Theatre. He also worked from 1864 to 1867 with the Arevelyan Tadron, the theatre of the Constantinople Armenians, and it was there that his incidental music to the play Vardan Mamikonean, p‘erkitch hayreneats (‘Vartan Mamikonian, the Saviour of his Country’, by Durian, Terzian and Sedefjian) was first performed in 1867. In 1868 he completed the opera Arshak Erkrord (‘Arshak II’), to a libretto by Terzian, marking the birth of Armenian national opera. Excerpts were performed in Constantinople, Naples, Venice, Paris and Vienna during the composer’s lifetime. The score, which was thought to have been lost, was discovered in Yerevan in ...