Life
- Born
- 27 December 1937, Urus-Martan, Chechen-Ingush ASSR
- Died
- 1992
- Education
- Grozny Music College — theory department, created specially for him · Gnesin Institute, Moscow, in the class of Professor G. I. Litinsky
- Family
- Zaynap (Zoya) Shakhbulatova — wife · Indira — daughter (1967–2009)
- Honours and prizes
- Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation · Honoured Artist of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR · Laureate of the Lenin Komsomol Prize · Laureate of the Glinka Prize
- Performed by
- Symphony Orchestra of the Chechen-Ingush State Radio and Television · Moscow Symphony Orchestra under V. Dudarova · Leningrad Pops Symphony Orchestra under A. Badkhen · Nina Isakova, Iosif Kobzon, Nina Grigorenko, Lyudmila Senchina, Lyudmila Simonova, Sultan Magomedov, Movlad Burkaev, Movsar Mintsaev, Leyla Musaeva, Imran Usmanov, Tamara Dadasheva, Suleyman Tokkaev, Maryam Tashaeva
- Legacy
- Music Gymnasium No. 1 in Grozny bears his name. In 1993 Rosa Luxemburg Street was renamed in his memory; the decision was reversed in the early 2000s.
- 1937
Born
27 December, in the village of Urus-Martan. His curiosity and many-sided gift showed from childhood.
- 1960
Grozny Music College
He graduated from the theory department, which had been created specially for him.
- 1960–63
Gnesin Institute, Moscow
In the class of Professor G. I. Litinsky.
- 1967
His daughter Indira is born
- 1973
The car crash
29 October, in Ordzhonikidze. He would spend almost twenty years bedridden — and would not stop working for a single year.
- 1976
Member of the Union of Composers of the USSR
- 1970s–80s
The great halls
His works were heard in the Great Kremlin Palace, the Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory, the Hall of Columns and on All-Union Radio, and entered the repertoire of the Leningrad Pops Symphony Orchestra.
- 1980s
Honoured Artist of the RSFSR
- 1989
First chairman of the Union of Composers
In November the republic founded its Union of Composers. He turned at once to the next generation — dreaming of a boarding school for gifted children, and of a national opera, symphony orchestra and conservatory in Grozny.
- 1992
His death
More than eight hundred works: songs, suites, pieces, sonatas, romances, sonatinas and cantatas.
- 1993
A street in his name
Rosa Luxemburg Street was renamed in his memory. The decision was reversed in the early 2000s.
A word on the composer
Curiosity and a many-sided gift, along with a passion for music, showed in Adnan Shakhbulatov from his earliest years. In 1960 he graduated from the theory department of the music college in Grozny — a department created specially for him.
From 1960 to 1963 he studied at the Gnesin Institute in Moscow in the class of Professor G. I. Litinsky. In 1976 he became a member of the Union of Composers of the USSR, and at the end of the 1980s he was named an Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation.
From the late 1970s his works were loved not only in his native Chechen-Ingushetia but were performed at all-Russian music festivals and in concerts of the Union of Composers, in the Great Kremlin Palace, in the Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory, in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions, and on All-Union Radio.
His compositions entered the repertoire of many orchestras of the country, and in particular the programme of the Leningrad Pops Symphony Orchestra under Anatoly Badkhen.
His bright talent showed itself most fully in chamber music. He wrote small piano, vocal and symphonic miniatures that draw the listener by their sincerity and depth.
He was a courageous man. Chained to his bed by grave illness after a car accident, he went on working stubbornly for twenty years.
Possessed of truly encyclopaedic knowledge and an astonishing memory, he was at home in classical and modern literature, in art and in philosophy. He had a quality rare today — he was never indifferent. Everything he said came from the heart. He was also easily wounded, could not bear falsehood or insincerity, and never forgave betrayal.
When the republic founded its Union of Composers in November 1989, Shakhbulatov became its first chairman, and turned at once to the fate of the rising generation. He hoped his long-held dream of a boarding school for gifted children would come true, so that small future poets, artists and choreographers could reach the finest of Russian, European and world art, and raise their national art higher. He dreamed of the day when Grozny would have a national opera and ballet, a national symphony orchestra, a choral capella and a conservatory.
In much he was ahead of his contemporaries. It falls to them and to their descendants to make sense of the composer’s musical legacy. Every effort must be made so that his music always lives in people’s hearts — for it carries, like a clear spring, the living water of inexhaustible love, truth and kindness, a bright dream of happiness and a great faith in a better future, not only for his own people but for everyone on earth.
— Natalya Antonenko, composer