Muradeli, Vano Ilich

Muradeli, Vano Il’ich 

Born Mar. 24 (Apr. 6), 1908, in Gori; died Aug. 14, 1970, in Tomsk, buried in Moscow. Soviet composer. People’s Artist of the USSR (1968). Member of the CPSU since 1942.

In 1931, Muradeli graduated from the Tbilisi Conservatory, where he studied composition with S. V. Barkhudarian and conducting with M. M. Bagrinovskii. He completed his studies at the Moscow Conservatory under the guidance of B. S. Shekhter and, subsequently, N. Ia. Miaskovskii. Muradeli began his career as a conductor; from 1942 to 1944 he served as head and artistic director of the Central Ensemble of the USSR Navy. From 1939 to 1948 he was chairman of the USSR Music Fund, and from 1959 to 1970, chairman of the board of the Moscow Division of the Composers’ Union of the RSFSR. Muradeli was a prominent exponent of Soviet music. His best works are imbued with patriotic and civic motifs and deal with important problems of contemporary life.

Muradeli wrote the operas A Great Friendship (1947; 2nd version, 1960) and October (1962), the operettas The Blue-eyed Girl (1966) and Moscow-Paris-Moscow (1968), two symphonies (1938, 1945), and many songs, including “Hymn to Moscow,” “Hymn of the International Student Union,” “The Party Is Our Helmsman,” “The Song of the Fighters for Peace,” “Russia—My Native Land,” and “Buchenwald Tocsin.”

Muradeli received the State Prize of the USSR in 1946 and 1951. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and a number of medals.

REFERENCE

Sezhenskii, K. Vano Muradeli. Moscow, 1962.