BARKHUDARIAN, SARKIS (1887–1972)

Mikael Ayrapetyan is a pianist, composer, producer and teacher, as well as a researcher and public figure. He has done much to popularise Armenian classical music all over the world with his Secrets of Armenia musical project, which began during his studies at the Moscow Conservatory. Born in 1984 in Yerevan, Armenia, he studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory, and continues to uphold the performing traditions of the Russian piano school, of which Konstantin Igumnov, Samuel Feinberg and Lev Oborin are luminaries. His repertoire ranges from the Baroque to the contemporary and includes rarely performed works by Armenian composers. This period was the start of his extensive concert activity in which he performs works by Tigranian, Chukhadjian, Komitas, Melikian, Spendiarian, Barkhudarian, Stepanian, Khachaturian, Babajanian, Arutyunian, Abrahamian, Bagdasarian, Avetisian, Mirzoyan, Amirkhanian and many other Armenian composers, which eventually led him to produce his own concerts. He was awarded the State Prize of the Republic of Armenia for his outstanding contribution to the development and popularisation of Armenian classical music.

Barkhudarian was born on 7 September 1887 in Tiflis (now Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia), the third of eight siblings. His first musical experiences were those found directly around him: the visiting street musicians, and the Armenian folk songs that his mother, Varduhi Ivanovna Saipian, would sing for him. His earliest surviving compositions date from his time at the Music Institute: the first being a Waltz composed on 25 April 1903. He kept an album of his new piano compositions, all miniatures in a variety of forms, some with pictorial titles: Lullaby, Farewell Song, Brook, waltzes, and so on. This collection of around 40 miniatures from c. 1903–09 is equally influenced by the musical and the literary.