|
Aleksandr Avak-Tarkhanian, but mainly famous as Monsieur Sasha, Monsieur Sasha Tarkhanof and Sasha Tarkhanian in Iran and famous as Aleksandr Tarkhanov, Sasha Tarkhanovi, or Sasha Tarkhanov in Caucasian area, the 12-string Caucasian Tar player, was born 1891 in Shusha, Azerbaijan, where is the native town of many famous singers and musicians.
His father, Avak, was a famous tar player and one of the Caucasian petrol shareholders. Sasha continued his father’s way; however “he passed away as Sasha was two years old”.
His mother didn’t allow him to touch the father’s tar, but when Sasha was alone, he hold the Tar and played with it. “He moved to Tiflis (Tbilisi) and started to learning Tar by the famous Tar player of his time Tati. In a short time his name and his skilfully Tar playing was on everyone's lips as a talent musician in all over the Caucasus.
In 1920 Sasha was invited to play in Levon Karakhan’s ensemble. Levon was a Kamanche player. In this ensemble within two years he played concerts in Caucasus and middle Asia, in Kotaisi, Baku, Yerevan, Shusha, Krasnovodsk, Ashgabad, Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent and many other cities.
In 1926 the Georgian commissary of art decided to send the ensemble to abroad. First inside of USSR and then outside to countries like, Poland, Germany, Belgium, France, England, Austria, Romania, Iran and Turkey.
The ensemble made performances, which confronted a great success. Levon Karakhan has mentioned that the solo part of these concerts with Sasha was apparent.
1932 Sasha comes for the first time to Iran and three years later 1935 he moved with his family to Tehran, Iran.
In Iran he got to know Haig, also Famous as Monsieur Haig. Sasha denoted him as a very legendary Kamanche player. About Haig we can’t say more than some following words. Haig never saw his parents and never married. Therefore he has not any children, where we can got more information about him.
Sasha lived most of his live years in Georgian in Tbilisi, even if he became Iranian citizen. He passed away 1962 in Tehran, Iran.
|
