Background
Ayvazyan was born in Baku to a musical family.
composer conductor jazz musician
Ayvazyan was born in Baku to a musical family.
Ayvazyan graduated from the Tbilisi State Conservatory in 1923 and studied at the studio of Alexander Spendiarian. He then attended the Moscow State Conservatory, completing his post-graduate research in 1935.
Many famous musicians including Fyodor Shalyapin and Sergei Rachmaninoff visited the family apartment on Merkurievskaya Street. In 1938 he founded the Armenian State Estrada (Jazz) Orchestra in Yerevan, one of the most popular in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics and the only one that survived during the stalinist repressions of the 1940s. Among his well-known songs are "January Yerevan", "Karine", "Get Arax" and "Im Karavan" (a melody which became the unofficial anthem of the Karabakh movement in Armenia in 1988.
He is also the author of the Armenian operetta "The Eastern Dentist," "Taparnikos" opera and soundtracks ("Inchu e aghmkum getn?", "Mor sirtn" Armenian films, "The Snow Queen" Soviet cartoon animation).
In 1939 Ayvazyan was awarded by the Renowned Master of Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic Arts title. He headed the Armenian State Estrada (Jazz) Orchestra until 1956, from 1943 to 1945 he was also the artistic head of Yerevan Musical Comedy Theater.
Ayvazyan was the first professor of cello class at the Yerevan State Conservatory.