Romanos Melikian
Armenian composer, conductor, pianist and teacher Romanos Melikian was born in Kizlyar (Dagestan, Russia) on 1 October 1883. He studied at New Nakhichevan Diocesan School, Rostov Musical College and at Saint Petersburg Conservatory. His teachers included Boleslav Yavorsky and Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov.
Melikian gave his first concert in Kizlyar in summer 1900 with a local Armenian choir, helped to organise the 'Music League' organisation (to create children's songs for schools and to regulate music teaching) in Tiflis in 1908, founded a music school in Stepanakert in 1925 and, in 1933, was one of the founders of Armenian Opera Theatre.
He wrote music for theatre performances and also an (unfortunately now lost) operetta, Jean and Jeanette. He also worked in Moscow and St Petersburg, where he published Autumn Verses.
Romanos Melikian died in Yerevan on 30 March 1935, aged fifty-one.