Abdylas Maldybaev

Maldybaev, Abdylas 

Born June 24 (July 7), 1906, in the village of Kara-Bulak, present-day Keminskii Raion. Soviet Kirghiz composer and singer (tenor). People’s Artist of the USSR (1939). Member of the CPSU (1939).

In 1929, Maldybaev graduated from a pedagogical technicum and was accepted into the company of the Kirghiz Studio (later the Musical and Dramatic Theater; since 1942 the Kirghiz Theater of Opera and Ballet in Frunze). In 1940-41 and from 1947 to 1950 he studied at the Moscow Conservatory (in G. I. Litinskii’s composition class and later in V. G. Fere’s class). In his work with the composer V. A. Vlasov and with V. G. Fere, Maldybaev helped create the first Kirghiz musical dramas and operas Adzhal orduna (Not Death, But Life, 1938), Aichurek (A Lunar Beauty, 1939), Patriots (1941), Manas (1946), and Tok togul (1958); he also played the principal parts in these works. Maldybaev, Vlasov, and Fere also composed the music for the national anthem of the Kirghiz SSR (1946). Maldybaev was the first to play the part of Lenskii in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin on the Kirghiz stage. Maldybaev was the founder of Soviet Kirghiz song.

From 1939 to 1967, Maldybaev served as the chairman of the Union of Composers of Kirghizia. He was a deputy to the first convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and to the second, third, and fourth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Kirghiz SSR. Maldybaev has been awarded the State Prize of the Kirghiz SSR (1970), the Order of Lenin, and four other orders.

REFERENCE

Vinogradov, V. A. Maldybaev, V. Vlasov i V. Fere. Moscow, 1958.