Aram Khachaturian

Soviet Armenian composer (1903–1978)

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Fame64.7
Momentum20.1
Musicians rank#26
Wikipedia28.7K

Lived 1903–1978, aged 75

MusiciansSinger / Musician

Wikipedia
73 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1903–1978
Aged 75
Awards
32
recognised works

Summary

Updated 2026-06-09

You've heard his music whether you know his name or not: the "Sabre Dance" — that manic, galloping sprint from his ballet Gayane — has drilled into global pop culture for eight decades. Khachaturian wrote it as one Soviet Armenian composer threading folk melodies into symphonies, concertos, and film scores, but that single two-minute frenzy became bigger tha

Biography

About

Born in Tbilisi in 1903, Khachaturian arrived in Moscow at eighteen with no formal music training and enrolled at the Gnessin Musical Institute anyway. His 1936 Piano Concerto announced him; his 1940 Violin Concerto and the ballets Gayane (1942) and Spartacus (1954) carried him into the Soviet establishment, where he held high posts in the Union of Soviet Composers and joined the Communist Party in 1943. In 1948 he was denounced alongside Prokofiev and Shostakovich as a "formalist" peddling "anti-people" music, then quietly restored months later. After 1950 he taught at the Moscow Conservatory…

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Albums

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Khachaturian: Violin Concerto / Shostakovich String Quartets nos. 7 & 8
2014
Piano Concertos
2014
The Gayaneh Ballet
2013
Rimsky‐Korsakov: Sheherazade / Khachaturian: Gayane
2012
Two Souls
2012
Brahms / Khachaturian Violin Concertos
2012
Ballet Suites
2012
Composer - Conductor - Pianist
2012
Armenian Rhapsody
2011
Shostakovich: Symphony Nos. 1 & 11 "The Year 1905" / Khachaturian: Symphony No. 2 "The Bell"
2011