Balanchivadze, Andrei Melitonovich

Born May 19 (June 1), 1906, in St. Petersburg. Soviet composer. People’s Artist of the USSR (1968). Son of the composer M. A. Balanchivadze.

Balanchivadze studied at the Tiflis Conservatory with M. M. Ippolitov-Ivanov and at the Leningrad Conservatory with A. M. Zhitomirskii. He wrote the first Georgian ballet, Heart of the Hills (1936, Georgian Theater of Opera and Ballet, Tbilisi) and the ballets The Pages of Life (1961, Bol-shoi Theater, Moscow), and Mtsyri (1964, Georgian Theater of Opera and Ballet). Of his two symphonies, the first, composed in 1944, earned him the State Prize of the USSR in 1946. He has also composed four concerti for piano and orchestra, instrumental chamber music, operas, and music for the theater and movies. His Second Piano Concerto earned him the State Prize of the USSR in 1947. Balanchivadze started to teach at the Tbilisi Conservatory in 1935, becoming a professor there in 1942. He has been chairman (1953–56) and first secretary of the board of the Composers’ Union of the Georgian SSR (1956–61; and since 1968) as well as honorable chairman of the Georgian Musical and Choreographic Society (since 1957). A deputy to the first through fifth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR, Balanchivadze has been awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.