Şahan Arzruni

Şahan Arzruni (Armenian: Շահան Արծրունի, pronounced Sha-HAN Ards-roo-NEE) is an Armenian pianist, composer, ethnomusicologist, lecturer and producer.

Arzruni was born in Istanbul, Turkey on June 8, 1943. He moved to New York in 1964 to study further at the Juilliard School of Music and eventually has appeared in many television radio broadcasts, including the Johnny Carson and Mike Douglas Shows, a number of PBS specials, and has recorded for European radio networks, including the BBC. Arzruni has given command performances at the White House, as well as the British, Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic courts.

Arzruni researches traditional Armenian music and has recorded a three-disc anthology of Armenian piano music, and co-produced an eight-disc set of instrumental and vocal Armenian music. He also delivered papers and organized symposia for such institutions as Harvard University, Columbia University and University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Şahan Arzruni is the author of books and a contributor of articles for academic journals; he has also written for various editions of The New Grove Dictionary and the Dictionary of the Middle Ages.

Şahan Arzruni has performed with Victor Borge, playing the role of straight man in Borge's concerts during the 1970s, and appeared with Borge at the 1980 Royal Variety Show Command Performance where the pair performed Borge's classic comedic arrangement for duet piano of Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody.

Arzruni holds degrees from The Juilliard School and has pursued doctoral studies at New York University.

ources

*"Victor Borge Live at the London Palladium" (1972)
* [http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Sahan_Arzruni Sahan Arzruni's Armeniapedia entry]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/talent/a/arzruni_sahan.shtml Sahan Arzruni at the BBC comedy guide]