Professor of the Yerevan State Conservatory after Komitas
Alda (Martuhi) Zakarian was born in Yerevan on March 8, 1931. Her father, Levon Zakarian, was an electrical engineer educated in Paris, and one of the first energy specialists in Armenia and worked in responsible positions. In 1937, he was repressed and rehabilitated posthumously in 1955. “My childhood ended at the age of six, when my father was arrested,” Alda Zakarian later recalled. Mother, Shushanik Pachajyan, was educated at the American Anatolia College in the city of Marzvan (Before the tragic events of the Armenian Genocide in 1915, the city of Marzvan was home to a vibrant community of 17,000 Armenians and a nearly equal number of Greeks. Both peoples were former citizens of Byzantium, which had been captured by the Ottoman Empire, now the territory of Turkey), where, in addition to general education disciplines, she was taught several languages and the art of playing the piano. The teachers were highly educated professors who studied in Europe. In Yerevan, for many years she taught general piano at the Romanos Melikyan Musical State College and published a book of memoirs.
At the age of four, Alda was accepted into a group of gifted children (there were eight or nine of them) at the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory. Over the years, the group grew, and in the 1939-1940 academic years, a ten-year music school was created on its basis. The school was later named Yerevan Specialized Secondary Music School Named after Tchaikovsky.
Alda’s first teacher for five years was Olga Babasyan.
During the Great Patriotic War, some musicians who had been educated in Moscow and Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) returned to Yerevan. Among them was Marjan Mkhitaryan. Alda studied in her class for four years. The last year of study in the ten-year school was spent in the class of Anna Mnatsakanyan, whom Alda Zakaryan always remembers with great gratitude and warmth as a wise, demanding professional, kind, and attentive to her students.
As a 6th-grade student at a ten-year school, young Alda began her accompanist career. Naturally possessing good sight reading, she accompanied in the classes of such teachers as Witold Portugalov (violin), Dmitriy Lekger (violin), and Levon Grigoryan (cello). One of the brightest memories of her school years is performing as a concertmaster in a concert dedicated to Ivan Bagramyan (Hovhannes Baghramyan, a Soviet military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union of Armenian origin). Among the performers was a unison of violinists under the direction of Dmitriy Lekger Antonio Vivaldi’s concerto was performed, and student Alda Zakarian was at the piano.
In 1949, Alda Zakaryan entered the Yerevan State Conservatory after Komitas. From the first days, in parallel with her studies, she was hired to work as an accompanist.
Alda Zakarian always dreamed of studying in the class of Professor Robert Andreasian, who was educated in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg). By entering the conservatory, she fulfilled her dream. As a 2nd year student, Alda Zakaryan participated in the internal conservatory piano competition dedicated to Ludwig van Beethoven. Alda Zakarian and Villy Sarkisyan shared the 2nd prize (the 1st was not awarded).
We should mention the solo concert of Alda Zakarian when she was a 4th-year student. In the program there were four piano concertos: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37, Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto, in A minor, Op. 54 and Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major,S.125. The part of the second piano was performed by Robert Andreasia.
Alda received her accompanist training in the classes of Martha Navasardyan (instrumental) and Elena Ter-Ghevondyan (vocal accompaniment), and the chamber ensemble in the class of Karen Kostanyan.
The first two years of Alda Zakaryan’s work as accompanist of the conservatory were spent in the clarinet class (teacher S. Dovgan) and flute class (teacher G. Kasabyan). Future Honored Artists of Armenia Mkrtich Tulakyan and Levon Aloyan graduated from the conservatory together with accompanist Alda Zakaryan. In 1952, while studying in her 3rd year at the conservatory, Alda Zakarian participated as an accompanist in Moscow at the selection for the festival “Prague Spring” with three soloists: Levon Aloyan (flute), Sergey Amedyan (oboe) and Mkrtich Tulakyan (clarinet). Sergey Amedyan successfully passed the selection and was awarded 1st prize at the Prague Spring Festival.
In the same year, Alda Zakaryan went to work in the violin classes of Professors K. Dombaev and G. Bogdanyan and the cello class of Professor L. Grigoryan. From 1961 to 1970 she worked in the class of the head of the vocal department, Associate Professor Karamyan.
In 1951, Alda Zakaryan was invited by K. Dombaev to be an accompanist at the Yerevan Specialized Secondary Music School Named after Tchaikovsky.
In 1964, Zakarian began teaching special piano at the Yerevan Specialized Secondary Music School Named after Tchaikovsky. Over the years, she raised many well-trained musicians.
Alda Zakaryan’s accompanist activities are varied. Listeners remember the successful tour in Greece in 1975 (soloists — Jean Ter-Merguerian, Gohar Galachyan, Tigran Levonyan). For these concerts, she was awarded the gratitude from the head of the Armenian Society for Cultural Cooperation with Foreign Countries. The collaboration with Jean Ter-Merguerian began during her school years and continued during her student years and the period of creative maturity (in total, about fifteen years). They performed concerts in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), Minsk, Kyiv, Lviv, Donetsk, Irkutsk, Tomsk, Riga, Tbilisi, and other cities of the USSR. More than thirty solo concerts with various programs were performed.
In Alda Zakaryan’s archive, there are posters of performances with violinists Hrachya Bogdanyan, Eduard Tadevosyan, Hrachya Harutyunian, and others.
Among the performances of those years were concerts with instrumentalists and vocalists. Solo concerts with Lusine Zakaryan took place in Yerevan and Leningrad (Saint Petersburg).
Alda Zakaryan, as an accompanist, has repeatedly participated in Transcaucasian competitions for young performers and was awarded diplomas. With her reliable support, violinists Villi Mokatsyan (1960, first competition), Hrayr Simavoryan and Ara Bogdanyan (1965), and Garegin Harutyunyan (1977) became laureates of the Transcaucasian Competition. Alda Zakarian-accompanist participated in the All-Union violin competitions (in 1961 and 1973), as well as in the All-Union selections for international competitions.
The union of Alda Zakarian with the Honored Artist of Armenia, Professor Villi Mokatsyan was quite long: they had about twenty joint solo concerts in Yerevan and other cities of Armenia.
With some violinist partners, Alda Zakaryan made recordings of fifteen works at the State Television and Radio of Armenia.
A gramophone record from the «Melodiya» record label was released: “Winners of the 1st Transcaucasian Competition of Performing Musicians”, Villi Mokatsyan performs “Romance” by Sergei Rachmaninoff and “Dance” by Alexander Arutiunian, accompanist — Alda Zakaryan.
In 1968, Alda Zakaryan began teaching at the General Piano Department of the Yerevan State Conservatory, and since 1970, she moved to the Department of Accompanist Training. In 1988, she was awarded the title of Associate Professor, and the title of Professor in 1993.
Alda Zakaryan headed the Department of Accompanist Training (1991-1996), replacing Yelena Ter-Ghevondyan. More than one hundred and fifty undergraduate and graduate students graduated from Alda Zakaryan’s accompanist training class.
Alda Zakarian is the author of two educational and methodological works published in 2006: “Performance Analysis of the Piano Part in Eduard Abramian’s Romances” and “Advice for a Beginning Accompanist.” She edited the collection of romances by Haro Stepanian (manuscript).
Alda Zakaryan was awarded honorary diplomas, commendations, and medals, in particular, “For the Exploration of Virgin Lands” (for participation in the Ten Days of Armenian Music in Kazakhstan) and “Veteran of Labor”.