Mikael Tariverdiev

Mikael Leonovich Tariverdiev (Russian: Микаэл Леонович Таривердиев, Armenian: Միքայել Թարիվերդիև; 15 August 1931 – 25 July 1996) was a prominent Soviet composer of Armenian descent. He headed the Composers' Guild of the Soviet Cinematographers' Union from its inception and is most famous for his movie scores, primarily the score to Seventeen Moments of Spring. Mikael Tariverdiev was born in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR to Armenian parents, but lived and worked in Russia. His father, Levon Tariverdiev, was from Baku but a native of Nagorno-Karabakh. His mother, Satenik, was Georgian Armenian. He studied at the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan for two years and then graduated from the Moscow Gnessin Institute in the class of Aram Khachaturian in 1957.Tariverdiev wrote over 100 romances and four operas, including the comic opera Count Cagliostro and the mono-opera "The Waiting". However, he is mostly known for his scores to many popular Soviet movies (more than 130 in total), including "Seventeen Moments of Spring" and "The Irony of Fate"—see List of film music by Mikael Tariverdiev.

He received many awards, including the USSR State Prize in 1977 and the Prize of the American Music Academy in 1975. In 1986 he was awarded the title of People's Artist of Russia. In 1990, he won three Nika Awards for Best Composer.

The Best Music prize at the largest Russian National Film Festival Kinotaur is named after Tariverdiev.

On 31 May 1990 Tariverdiev underwent cardiac surgery in the London Royal Hospital; his aortic valve was replaced with an artificial one. Upon his death in 1996, a group of admirers of his music founded the Mikael Tariverdiev Charity Fund and organized the Tariverdiev International Organ Competition.

In November 2015, the first major release of Tariverdiev's work in the West was published in London by Antique Beat and the UK label Earth Recordings, as a set of three albums titled 'Film Music'. The release was curated by Vera Tariverdieva, the composer's widow, and Stephen Coates of the UK band The Real Tuesday Weld, who had heard Tariverdiev's music in Moscow in 2011.