Ashot Zograbyan was born on the 29th of January, 1945, in Yerevan, the capital of the former Armenian SSR. He studied music with Grikov Gheryazarian and Edward Bagdasarian at the Komitas Conservatory, where he now teaches composition and orchestration. He also teaches at the Babajanian Music School, for teenagers aged 14 to 18. Mr. Zograbyan won the 1993 Khachaturian Competition with his Parable for 13 instruments, composed in 1991. His works are well known in Armenia and Russia and have also been performed in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, Belgium and the United States. For many years, Zograbyan has been an outsider as a composer in Armenia, due to the advanced chromaticism of his music, distilled from his study of the leading European avant-garde masters such as Boulez and Stockhausen.