Français

Born in 1936 in Paris of a Georgian father and a half Russian half German mother, Nicolas Zourabichvili de Pelken commenced his musical studies at the Bordeaux conservatoire (piano, theory, harmony) in 1946. After his family's return to Paris, he registered at the Conservatoire (situated at that time in the rue de Madrid) in 1948, in a music theory class while at the same time continuing his secondary education, firstly in a Jesuit college and then, at the Janson-de-Sailly lycée. Having obtained his baccalauréat, he entered the Sorbonne University where he studied from 1956 to1963 (degree in litterature, diploma of Further Education (equivalent of today's masters degree), C.A.P.E.S. (teaching qualification) in Russian. While attending university, he also studied music composition with Nadia Boulanger from 1959 to 1962 (harmony, counterpoint and fugue), then with Max Deutsch from 1962 to 1964 (dodecaphonic system).

In 1959, he met Maurice Ohana who, in spite of their huge age difference, became, up till his death, one of his closest friends. After Ohana's death in 1993, he became a founding member, along with others (Félix Ibarrondo, Edith Canat de Chizy, Tôn-thât Tiêt, Francis Bayer, and others), of the Association des amis de Maurice Ohana (the Association of Maurice Ohana's friends), and as such, has become a member of the jury of the Ohana Competition for composition.

From 1970 to 1997, he was a Russian professor within the C.N.E.D. (National Centre for Distance Learning) where he was responsible for preparing students for various competitive qualifications (C.A.P.E.S., Agrégation).

From 1986 to 1988, he held the post of director of the Conservatoire Serge Rachmaninoff in Paris.

Nicolas Zourabichvili published a complete translation of the Correspondence of Mussorgski, in collaboration with the composer Francis Bayer (Editions Fayard, Paris 2001).

He composed the music scores for all films by the Georgian film director, Otar Iosseliani, since he settled in France in 1984 and the music of Retour à Kotelnitch by Emmanuel Carrère.

Among other prizes, he was awarded the Lili Boulanger Prize in 1970 and 1975, the Prize of the City of Nantes en 1977 and the Arthur Honegger Prize in 1986 for the piece for piano Thrène pour Thelonious Monk.