Role: Composer

Pianist

Sayat-Nova (1712-1795), or 'King of Songs' is the name given to Harutyun Sahakyan . He was probably born in Sanahin, where his mother was also born, and he grew up in a village near Tbilisi, Georgia, and was skilled in writing poetry, singing and playing the Kamancheh. He performed in the court of Heracle II of Georgia, where he also worked as a diplomat, and apparently helped forge an alliance between Georgia, Armenia and Shirvan against the Persian Empire. He lost his place at court when he fell in love with the king's daughter, and spent the rest of his life as an itinerant bard. In 1795 he was killed in Haghpat by the army of Agha Mohammed Khan. \

A cellist, composer, teacher and founding member of the Komitas Quartet, Aslamazian was born in 1896 in Mozdok, Russia, where he received his early musical education from his father. He later enrolled at the Moscow Conservatory where he later taught cello and string quartet literature for more than fourty years. In 1925, while still a student at the Moscow Conservatory, Aslamazian was one of the founding members of the String Quartet of the Moscow Conservatory, whose members were all students of the Conservatory. It was in those early years in the life of the Quartet that Aslamazian began working on the transciptions. \