Yevgenia Khosrovyan

(1908 - 1963)

From a musical family in Tiflis (Tbilisi) (father — violinist, mother — pianist) came Yevgenia Khosrovyan, who moved to Yerevan at the invitation of the first director of the Yerevan State Conservatory, composer Romanos Melikian. Shortly before that, in 1919, she graduated from the Petrograd Conservatory in the class of Maria Barinova, having received the title of «free artist» (by the way, Maria Barinova herself had close contact with the outstanding musicians Ferruccio Busoni, Josef Hofmann, attended their master classes in Germany).

Khosrovian was a gifted pianist. After moving to Yerevan, Yevgenia Khosrovyan enthusiastically joined the musical life of the city and gave two piano recitals, on which she performed such masterpieces of piano literature as Bach-Busoni Chaconne in D Minor, BWV 1004, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata No. 30 op.109, several works by Frédéric Chopin and Alexander Scriabin.

She was the first pianist of the Radio Broadcasting Committee of Armenia. Most often she performed as an accompanist with famous Armenian singers (A. Danielayan, A. Babalyan, L. Isetsky) and instrumentalists (A. Gabrielyan, M. Maluntsian, A. Ayvazyan, D. Soghomonyan).

According to the recollections of her students, Yevgenia Khosrovyan, even in the later years of her life, was very lively and confidently accompanied her students when they performed piano concertos. Active and principled, she was at the same time a sympathetic, sensitive person who appreciated wit, and humor, capable of the noblest deeds. So, during the war, left alone with her little son, she without hesitation gave her jewelry and monetary savings to the Defense Fund.

As a teacher, Yevgenia Khosrovyan sought to expand the musical horizons of her students, enriching her pedagogical repertoire with new interesting works. In contrast to her closest colleagues, Yevgenia Khosrovian was less committed to gradual, step-by-step learning and often assigned students difficult pieces of work. In her opinion, such an approach, activating forces, contributed more to the growth of the student. This method was justified only by her brightest students. The play of the young, uniquely gifted Arno Babajanyan evoked a storm of enthusiastic feelings among the audience.

His further studies took place at the Moscow Conservatory, from which he brilliantly graduated in the class of Konstantin Igumnov.

One of the best pupils of Yevgenia Khosrovyan was also Amalia Bayburtyan, who later graduated from the Yerevan State Conservatory in the class of Georgy Sarajev and improved in the postgraduate course of the Moscow Conservatory with Heinrich Neuhaus.

Yevgenia Khosrovyan’s students were one of the major Armenian composers Ghazaros Saryan, a well-known pianist and accompanist Hovhannes Parajanyan, and many others.

Yevgenia Khosrovyan was the first to understand the need to create a pedagogical repertoire for beginning musicians based on national music. To this end, Yevgenia Khosrovian published the «School of Piano Playing».

Although the publication was called a school, in essence, it was the first collection containing arrangements of Armenian folk melodies and songs. It is noteworthy that Yevgenia Khosrovyan mentioned the “School” by Lev Barenboim in his famous work «The Way to Making Music» (1979).

Possessing an organizational «vein» by nature, Yevgenia Khosrovyan led the educational work at the Tchaikovsky Secondary Music School in Yerevan.

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