Hrachya Melikyan

Hrachya Melikyan (Հրաչյա Մելիքյան, ; May 8, 1947 – March 6, 2006) was an Armenian music composer and film composer.

Hrachya Melikyan synthesized world music developments and national music particularities, forging his own characteristic and distinctive musical style.

The majority of his compositions are instrumentals, including symphonic, chamber, as well as ensemble compositions.

Melikyan also composed numerous choir compositions, romances, pieces for different instruments, as well as music to films including The Ingenious Peasant.

Hrachya Melikyan was born on May 8, 1947, in Yerevan, Armenia, to an attorney and an accountant.

Hrachya, his brother and sisters excelled in their studies at school.

As his siblings aspired towards engineering and physics, Hrachya's dream was to study musical.

Early on while in elementary school, he bought a guitar with the pocket money he had been saving for some time and began to play.

Shortly after, he also began playing the accordion (self-taught).

The last years in secondary school he was actively involved with the school's music group, acting as a conductor and playing the accordion.

A talented exponent of the Armenian contemporary composition school, Hrachya Melikyan with his new artistic vision and distinctive musical style belongs to the generation of 1960–1970s.

Melikyan's artistic vision was formed during the complex interactive processes of Armenian and international musical practices, as he synthesized world music developments and national music particularities, forging his own distinctive musical style.

In 1962 his determination brought him to a music school at the age of 15 – being accepted to a music school at this age was unusual - where he started playing the clarinet (class of Lavchyan).

He finished school in two years vs. the traditional five, then continued his studies in the Yerevan State Music College where he was enrolled on the clarinet track while also studying composing under the guidance of Professor Emin Aristakesyan.

His father was not in favor of his son pursuing a musical career.

To please his family, Hrachya was simultaneously preparing for entrance exams to the law faculty of the Yerevan State University.

However, one day he came home and announced his acceptance to the Yerevan State Conservatory.

In 1967, at the age of 20, he entered the composition department of the Yerevan State Conservatory, class of USSR People's Artist, Professor Edvard Mirzoyan.

As Mirzoyan admitted, "I have to confess that he was one of my favorite students during my lengthy teaching career. Working with him was a pleasure for me."

During his student years he took up the study of various woodwind instruments.

He mastered playing the piano so well that he performed not only his own pieces but also the compositions of his fellow composers.

Arno Babajanyan, a renowned Armenian composer and pianist advised him more than once to seriously consider a career of a pianist, a piece of advice he did not follow.

Melikyan was actively composing in his student years already.

His Sonata for the Clarinet and Piano won a prize at the 3rd All-Union competition of Young Composers.

His works composed during his student years were published by the Conservatory and were performed in Yerevan, Tbilisi, Baku, Kiev and other capitals of the former Soviet republics.

The latter won the III prize in the contest of young Soviet composers, held in Moscow in 1969.

Shortly after 1969, the chamber genre became the core of his compositions.

The composer's wish to get out of the limits of the traditional chamber genre was obvious.

He was a member of the Union of Composers and Musicologists from 1972 and the Vice President of the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Armenia from 1991 until his untimely death in March 2006.

Ghazaros (Lazar) Saryan in his reference letter, dated July 1, 1972, for Melikyan to be accepted as a member of the Union of Composers, wrote "His style is interesting and distinctive/original. He principally avoids accepted means of expression. In his quest for new means of expression and new constructions he has achieved considerable success."

In 1972, the young composer was accepted to the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Armenia.

It is enough to attentively look through the list of compositions to see beside the traditional string quartets, quartets for woodwinds (1972, 1974), trios of non-traditional composition for clarinet, violin and piano (1980), for violin, viola and cello, with vibraphone in part four (1990).

The composition of two quintets is also noteworthy – three flutes, cello and piano (1984), flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn (1988), etc. In the 1990s Melikyan composed an octet for oboe, two clarinets (A, B), two trombones, and piano.

The variety of compositions of the composer is indicative of his special interest to bring to light the different tones of instrumental timbres that complement one another.

In compositions for piano, string instruments and woodwinds, the composer singles out the woodwinds.

In this context, Hrachya Melikyan's place among the Armenian composers is exceptional not only by the quantity of compositions for woodwind instruments, but also by the variety of timbral characters.

In 1991, Melikyan became the Responsible Secretary of the Union and served in that position until his death in March 2006.

In 1995 he established "Archesh" publishing house at the Union of Composers.

From the time he took up an administrative position in the Union until his last days he played a significant role in promoting his fellow composers’ compositions through organizing concerts and publishing their works.

The first compositions that brought him recognition were String Quartet #1 and the sonata for clarinet and piano – both written during his years as a student.