Jivan Aramaisovich Gasparyan (Armenian Ջիվան Գասպարյան; 12 October 1928, Solak village near the town of Hrazdan, Armenian SSR - 6 July 2021) was an Armenian musician and composer, an expert in Armenian national music, and a master of the duduk. People's Artist of the Armenian SSR (1978). Since 1976 he has been a professor at Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory.
Jivan Aramaisovich Gasparyan was born on 12 October 1928 in a small Armenian village called Solak, not far from the town of Hrazdan. When Jivan was just a boy, his mother passed away and his father went to the front (during the Great Patriotic War). That's how he ended up in an orphanage.
At the age of six he began to play the duduk, an Armenian musical wind instrument, on his own. He also played the zurna and the shvi.
Little Jivan learnt the basics of the ancient Armenian instrument alone. The boy simply listened to the play of old masters and tried to repeat something. His first listeners were orphanage mates.
In 1946, Gasparyan as a member of an amateur ensemble performed in Moscow at the show of masters of arts of the USSR republics. Stalin himself was sitting in the hall of the Bolshoi Theatre. For his performance he received a gold watch as a gift from the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Joseph Stalin.
In 1948 he became a member of the ensemble of national song and dance. In the same year he had his first professional performance with the Yerevan Philharmonic Orchestra as a soloist.
In 1956 Jivan Gasparyan received his first prize at the duduk competition.
In 1957 Gasparyan, together with the Beryozka ensemble, went on a foreign tour to America for the first time.
Winner of four UNESCO gold medals: 1959, 1962, 1973, 1980.
Professor at the Yerevan Conservatory, trained and prepared many professional duduk performers.
From the late 1980s he worked in the USA, where he wrote the theme on the duduk for the film "The Last Temptation of Christ", in the 1990s he worked in the USA with his grandson, Jivan Gasparyan Jr. who continued his work. In 2000 he became one of the musicians on the soundtrack to the film "Gladiator".
Jivan Gasparyan recorded his first solo album "Armenian Folk Melodies" for Melodiya in 1983. The record was re-released in 1989 under the title "I Will Not Be Sad In This World" on Brian Eno's Opal Records label.
In 1988 Gasparyan was invited to several concerts in London. And instead of the planned two, he gave five concerts. After that he was invited to the USA.
In 2002 he received the WOMEX (World Music Expo) award "For Services to the Art of Music". In 2006 he was nominated for a Grammy.
In 2003 Gasparyan wrote music for Alexander Gutman's feature film "Frescoes", which tells about life in Armenia after the collapse of the USSR, which followed shortly after the terrible earthquake. Gasparyan's music from this film was later released on an album of the same name.
He co-wrote the music for the soundtrack to "Gladiator" in 2000, and also composed the duduk themes for "The Last Temptation of Christ".
He has toured the world several times with a small ensemble performing Armenian folk music.
He has worked with many musicians, including the likes of Serj Tankian, Andreas Vollenweider, Lionel Richie, Peter Gabriel, Hans Zimmer, Brian May, Boris Grebenshchikov,[3] Irina Allegrova, Vladimir Presnyakov, Roman Miroshnichenko, Igor Krutoy, Michael Brook and Derek Sherinian.
He died on 6 July 2021 in his 93rd year of life.
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