• Composer and Pianist Sargis Barkhudaryan, 1887

Sargis Barkhudaryan

Born in Tiflis, [now Tbilisi] Georgia, Sargis was one of the eight children of a successful businessman, who died when his son was only a teenager. The young man grew up in a musical household. Their house was near an open marketplace and here he heard different tunes sung by vendors; Sargis was able to reproduce them on various folk instruments. Finally, a piano was purchased and Sargis began to take private lessons, initially from Sofia Karakhanyan and later at the local music school, where eventually enrolled in the class of Lyutsan Lyutsanovich Truskovsky.

In 1900, Sargis’s mother Vartuhi send the young man to Armenia to become familiar with his native culture. There he met Komitas and was deeply affected. In 1907, like Komitas before him, Barkhudaryan left for Berlin, Germany, to refine his musical education. In the beginning, he studied the piano privately with Prof. Schultz but shortly he joined the student body of the Royal Conservatory itself. In Berlin, he made important contacts and got involved in local Armenian activities. Later, he entered the Petrograd Conservatory (now the Saint Petersburg Conservatory), enrolling in the theory and composition classes of Maximilian Steinberg and Yosep Vitol.

He graduated in 1915. Barkhudaryan taught in the conservatories of Tbilisi and later of Yerevan. In 1936, Sargis Barkhudaryan was named the Honored Worker of Georgian SSR and in 1960, the People's Artist of Armenian SSR. He has written mostly piano miniatures.

He died in Tbilisi and is buried in Yerevan.