Otar Taktakishvili
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Otar Taktakishvili | |
---|---|
Born | 27 July 1924 USSR |
Occupations | |
Years active | 1957–1989 |
Otar Vasilisdze Taktakishvili (
While still a student at the
Biography
Otar V. Taktakishvili was born and grew up in
While attending the No42 School on Barnov St. in Tbilisi, Otar started his piano lessons with Tamara V. Bagrationi. He subsequently studied with several piano educators including Militsa K. Korius, Anastasia D. Virasladze, and Evgenia Vasilievna Cherniavskaia, where he met his future wife, Irina Giorgienvna Chirakadze, with whom he lived until the end of his life in 1989. Their romance started at the piano while practicing a piano piece for four hands. At the end of high school, he attended and received a diploma from the Air Force Technicuum until he began his studies at the Tbilisi conservatory.
Soon after entering the conservatory in 1942, while Georgia was at war with Nazi Germany, Taktakishvili composed the Anthem of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. According to the composer's own report, his mother had urged him to enter the contest for the National Anthem after seeing the words to the anthem published in the newspaper. The 19-year-old composer wrote the music “in one try”, submitted his entry and forgot about the contest. He only found out that his music had been selected when he stood outside the concert hall and heard his anthem being played.
Taktakishvili studied at the Tbilisi Conservatory under
Taktakishvili was survived by his spouse, Irina Chirakadze, who resided in the same apartment on 6 Taktakishvili street (former Riga street) where the composer lived from 1964 until 1989, as well as his son Mikhail O. Taktakishvili, who was a professor of Chemistry, and grandson Otar M. Taktakishvili, who is a physician and a composer, living in New York, And his Great Grandson Otar W. Taktakishvilli living in Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Works
Operas
- Mindia (based on works of Vazha-Pshavela, 1961)
- Award (Tele-opera, 1964)
- Three Tales, operatic triptychon from three short operas.
- The Abduction of the Moon (Based on the novel of Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, 1977)
- Mususi (The Lady Killer), comic opera (Based on the novel of Mikheil Javakhishvili, 1977)
- First Love (1979)
Filmography
- 1957 — I Will Say the Truth
- 1982 — The Law of Eternity
- 1984 — Monday - Usual Day
Awards
- People's Artist of Georgia (1961)
- People's Artist of the USSR (1974)
- USSR State Prize третьей степени (1951) for first symphony
- USSR State Prize второй степени (1952)
- USSR State Prize (1967)
- Lenin Prize (1982) — For opera: "The Abduction of the Moon" (1977)
- Shota Rustaveli Prize (1984)
- Order of Lenin (1966)
- Order of the October Revolution (1971)
- Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1958)
- Medals
- Albert Schweitzer Prize (1986)
- Honoured citizen of Tbilisi (1985).
References
- ISBN 9780674372993.
Sources
- Finscher, Ludwig (ed.): Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 2nd ed. Stuttgart, Kassel 1994–2007
- Hollfelder, Peter: Die Klaviermusik, Hamburg 1999
- Laux, Karl: Die Musik in Rußland und der Sowjetunion, East-Berlin 1958
External links
- Literature by and about Otar Taktakishvili in the German National Library catalogue
- Otar Taktakishvili (1924-1989) French National Library