Sulkhan Tsintsadze

Sulkhan Tsintsadze
Sulkhan Tsintsadze
Background information
Born	(1925-08-23)August 23, 1925 Tblisi, Georgia
Origin	Georgian
Died	September 15, 1991(1991-09-15) (aged 66)
Genres	Classical music, Symphony, Folklore, Georgian contemporary music
Occupation(s)	Music director, Composer
Years active	1953–1991
Associated acts	Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theatre, Georgian State Symphony Orchestra, Tbilisi Center for Music and Culture, Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra

Sulkhan Fyodorovich Tsintsadze (Georgian: სულხან ცინცაძე), (August 23, 1925 in Gori, Transcaucasian SSR, Soviet Union – September 15, 1991 in Tbilisi, Georgia) was one of Georgia's foremost composers.

Tsintsadze studied the cello until 1942 with E.N. Kapelniski in Tbilisi at the Gymnasium of Music. He furthered his studies of the cello at the Conservatory of Tblisi with K. Minjar. From the years 1945 to 1953 he went to the Moscow Conservatory to study the cello with Semyon Matveyevich Kozolupov and composition with Semyon Semyonovich Bogatyryov.

He began his musical career in the 1940s as the cellist in the Georgian State String Quartet. His first composition, based on Georgian folksongs and being a collection of miniatures for string quartet, was an immediate success. He also wrote several operas, ballets, symphonies and concertos, but it was his compositions for string quartet which came to take pride of place amongst his works and which made a notable contribution to Georgian music. Tsintsadze's compositions are based on the traditional forms as well as styles and characteristics used by composers such as Shostakovich and Shebalin. Georgian folklore is ever present in his music.

Sulkhan Tsintsadze was one of Georgia's leading composers. He was awarded the People's Artist of Georgia (1961) and People's Artist of the USSR (1987) titles, and was a holder of the USSR Stalin Prize (1950), Zakharia Paliashvili Prize (1977), and Shota Rustaveli Prize (1981).