TEHRAN Prominent piano and violin players Armen Babakhanian and Khachik Babaian gave marvelous concerts at Tehran Ararat Club on March 4, 5 and 7. Armen Babakhanian, a well-known pianist, gave a recital on March 4 and 5. It was a performance which could only be carried out by an international and professional musician like Babakhanian, and it was highly welcomed by the audience at the Ararat Club. Babakhanian was accompanied by renowned violin player Khachik Babaian during his performance on March 7. At the end of each concert, due to the continuous clapping of the audience and standing ovation, the musicians performed at least three extra pieces from Beethoven, Mozart, Mussorgsky, Schupan, Debussy and several Armenian composers including Komitas, Melik Aslanian, Andriasian and Babajanian. The outstanding pieces of the program was "Poem" by Babajanian. It is worth saying that with only two days of rehearsal, Khachik Babaian played some pieces from Mozart and Beethoven in full coordination with Babakhanian. The two musicians displayed such a high degree of harmony as if they had given joint concerts for several years.

Armen Babakhanian, who has participated in musical concerts in different parts of the world, employed his own unique technics and God-given talents in playing piano and, through remarkably performing the pieces, conveyed his feelings to the audience. Babakhanian's performance of the musical piece Parvaneh, composed by Emanoel Malek Aslanian, was the closest performance to what was composed by Aslanian. It should be said that a more appropriate hall like Vahdat Hall, should be allocated to an exceptional artist like Babakhanian, whose works are so interesting and unique, in the future, where the music lovers and young artists can learn from his remarkable performance.

Born in Yerevan Armenia, Babakhanian studied at the Tchaikovsky Special School in Yerevan for twelve years before attending the Yerevan Conservatory of Music where he received his Artist Diploma under Anahid Bogdanian. Babakhanian has also studied privately with Claude Frank in New York. A recent laureate of several of the world's prestigious international piano competitions including the Van Cliburn, the Leeds, the Dublin the Gina Bachauer, the William Kappell and most recently, the 1997 World Piano Competition, Babakhanian has captured the imagination of audience and critics alike through the intensity and honesty of his performances.

Of his performances during the 1993 Van Cliburn International Competition, James Keller of Piano & Keyboard magazine wrote: Armen Babakhanian was, pure and simple, the overwhelming talent of the Ninth Cliburn. Keller further predicted the ascendency of Armen Babakhanian into firmament of world-class pianists. Babakhanian has performed recitals and concertos in the United states, Russia, England, Ireland, France, Spain, Japan, Canada, Armenia, Bulgaria, Germany and Austria. He has toured Austria with the Armenian State symphony Orchestra and has performed as soloist with the City of Birmingham Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle, the Irish National Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, National Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Moscow Philharmonic and the Gulbenkian Chamber Orchestra. During the fall of 1994, Babakhanian performed recitals in seventeen North American cities which included New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Chicago, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Dallas, Fort Worth and Toronto. In 1995, he performed at the Interlochen Arts Festival. Meanwhile, Khachik Babaian the violinist who accompanied Babakhanian in one of Babakhanian recitals at the Ararat Club, was born in 1956 in a musical family in Tabriz. He began to take first steps in playing the violin by himself when he was 4. At the age of 7, he started to take regular lessons with Professor Zavan Edgarian in Tabriz. In 1972, he entered the Tehran Conservatory, where he took lessons with Professor Hrach Manoukian. He won the first prize of the Iranian violinists' competition in 1974 and was awarded as scholarship of musical studies abroad.

In 1975, he began his musical students at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where his teacher was Professor Manouk Parikian, a well-known international violinist. He graduated by passing the ARCM examination in violin with honors, and became an associate of the Royal College of Music in 1979. He returned to Iran in 1980 and continued his profession as soloist and concert master with Iranian Symphony and radio-television orchestras.

In 1990, he participated in 8 Concorso Internazionale di violino Premio Rodolfo Lipizer competition in Italy. Babaian is at present performing in several music recitals as a soloist.