Konstantin Saradzhev

Konstantin Saradzhev (also Constantin Saradgeff, born Saradzhian; 8 October 1877 – 22 July 1954) was an Armenian conductor and violinist. He was an advocate of new Russian music, and conducted a number of premieres of works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Modest Mussorgsky, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Aram Khachaturian. His son Konstantin Konstantinovich Saradzhev was a noted bell ringer and musical theorist.

He was born Konstantin Solomonovich Saradzhian in Derbent, Dagestan, in 1877; his father was a doctor. He attended the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied violin under Jan Hřímalý and theory under Sergei Taneyev, graduating in 1898. He then became a teacher and concert performer. He had further violin study with Otakar Ševčík in Prague in 1900. In 1901 he became conductor of the Moscow Opera Lovers' Club. He also formed his own string quartet. From 1904 to 1908 he studied conducting with Arthur Nikisch in Leipzig. On return to Russia he conducted the summer symphony concerts at Sokolniki Park in 1908, 1910 and 1911. He became director of the State Institute of Theatrical Art. On 8 October 1913 he conducted the first performance of Mussorgsky's much-delayed and still incomplete comic opera The Fair at Sorochyntsi at the Free Theatre in Moscow.

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