The composer
Born in Tbilisi in 1903, Khachaturian moved in his late teens to Moscow, where he studied with, among others, composer Nikolai Myaskovsky. Early works such his Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano (1932) and First Symphony (1934) earned the admiration of the likes of Prokofiev and Shostakovich before his Piano Concerto really propelled him into the limelight. With one brief blip in 1948, he managed to stay on the right side of the Soviet authorities as he pursued a composing career that included various filmscores plus the very and . He died in 1978.
