Georgiy Garanyan

Georgiy Garanyan is a Soviet and Russian jazz, classical and pop saxophonist of Armenian origin, composer, arranger, conductor, band leader, artistic director of a number of musical ensembles. The future jazzman was born in Moscow. Georgiy's parents were Soviet intellectuals. In his youth, his father Aram Garayan trained as a timber skidding engineer, and his mother Vera Korchina worked as a primary school teacher. At the age of 7, Zhora first heard Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade" and fell in love with jazz forever. The boy was taught the basics of playing the piano by his neighbor, a music teacher. Garanyan did not study at a music school, and when the time came to decide on a profession, at the insistence of his father he entered the Moscow Machine Tool Institute. While receiving higher education, the young man played in an amateur musical band, where he independently mastered the saxophone. By the end of the institute, a wide-ranging mechanical engineer, Garanyan had already led a group of saxophonists in the Youth Orchestra of the Central House of Artists, led by Yuriy Saulskiy. In 1957, the team was awarded a silver medal at the World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow. Georgiy Aramovich graduated from conducting courses at the Moscow Conservatory as an external student at the age of 34, already a mature musician. Garanyan had the opportunity to play with the orchestras of Oleg Lundstrem and Vadim Lyudvikovskiy. Together with trumpeter Vladimir Chizhik, he created the Melodiya band, whose hallmark was the performance of music by Soviet composers in a jazz arrangement. The first record sold 4 million copies. Over the years of work under the direction of Garanyan, the band recorded 16 giant solo records and 9 mini-albums. From 1972 to 1979, Georgy Garanyan worked as conductor of the USSR State Film Orchestra of the U.S.S.R., The. Wrote music for cult Soviet films, including Volshebnyy fonar (1974), Pokrov Gates (1983), Vecherniy labirint (1981), Retsept yeyo molodosti (1983), Krik delfina (1987).