Vartan melkonian wikipedia

Vartan Melkonian has a remarkable story to tell – a musically talented orphan caught up in war comes to England, sings in clubs, directs TV commercials and appears on New Faces.

A charming and dedicated family man, Vartan has formed a Foundation that acknowledges his roots by supporting underprivileged children.

Vartan melkonian wikipedia

He is also a composer and, on the 15th in the Royal Festival Hall, conducts a charity concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Mozart’s Symphony No.40 included. It will be fascinating to hear Vartan’s view of these pieces – for he is entirely self-taught and approaches his profession through musical instinct: “I treat music for its own sake.”

Vartan’s background is Armenian.

His grandparents perished in a massacre a century ago – “my parents as children were rescued and brought to the Middle East by the French; Lebanon was a French colony. They grew up in a refugee camp where I was bor