Pianist Şahan Arzruni on Championing Armenian Composers

Şahan Arzruni, an accomplished New York-based pianist and composer, discussed his decades-long mission to promote Armenian classical music in an interview with The Armenian Weekly. Born in Istanbul and trained at Juilliard, Arzruni has performed at prestigious venues including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Library of Congress, and White House. He explained his philosophy of focusing primarily on works by Armenian composers—from Komitas to Khachaturian—rather than European classical standards, arguing that other pianists adequately cover that repertoire. At 83, Arzruni is completing a series of eight recordings intended as a comprehensive overview of Armenian piano music, including complete works of Komitas, his contemporaries, Alan Hovhaness, diaspora composers, and Armenian women composers. He emphasized that Komitas's "Seven Dances for Piano" form the foundation of Armenian piano repertoire.