Arman Gushchyan

Composer, curator, educator, orchestrator

Arman Gushchyan (*1981) was born in Yerevan, Armenia and grew up in Moscow, Russia since the age of 11. He graduated Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with honors, where he studied composition with Roman Ledenyov. Subsequently he studied composition with Roland Moser and orchestration with Georg Friedrich Haas at the Basle Music Academy in 2006-2008. In 2010-2012 he took a postgraduate composition course “Meisterklassen” by Mark Andre and Franz Martin Olbrisch (Computer music) at the University of music Dresden.

Arman Gushchyan has taught theoretical subjects, orchestration, and composition at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 2008-2013.

He has been a laureate of the Swiss Federal Scholarship (2006-08) and of the DAAD scholarship (2010-11), also a laureate at the Shostakovich competition (Moscow, 2006, for Metanoia for orchestra), at the third international Pre-Art competition (Zürich, 2007, for Nihil sive for ensemble) and at the Pythian Games (St. Petersburg, 2014, for Ob-L-IK-I (a.k.a. LIK)). He has had a one-year residency at Richard-Wagner-Stätten near Dresden in 2010-2011.

Among the performers of his music have been Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Studio for New Music Ensemble (Moscow), eNsemble (St. Petersburg), Russian State Symphony Orchestra; Ensemble Phoenix Basel, Camerata Variabile Basel, Mondrian Ensemble (Basel), ensemble pre-art (Zürich), Ensemble Proton Bern, Apartment House (London), Sinfonieorchester Basel, Sinfonietta Dresden, Ensemble Courage (Dresden), Dresdner Philharmonie; conductors Fedor Lednev, Jürg Henneberger, Jurjen Hempel and Ekkehard Klemm; also musicians Artur Avanesov, Konstantin Volostnov, Denis Sorokin, Sergej Tchirkov, Viviane Chassot and Stephan Schmidt. His music has been played at festivals: Moscow Forum (2003), ISCM World New Music Days (2004, Lucern), Tonkünslerfest Zürich (2007), Moscow Autumn festival (2004, 2005, 2009-2011, 2014, 2017, 2018), Lost in Translation (2011, Moscow), Culturescapes Moskau (2012, Basel), Two Days and Two Nights of New Music (2013, Odessa), reMusik Fest (2016, St.Petersburg).

As arranger of classical music for orchestra and ensemble Arman Gushchyan has had cooperations with different orchestras, among which are the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra under direction of Vladimir Fedoseev, “New Russia” State Symphony Orchestra.

He has also written music for theater plays for the Meyerhold Center in Moscow, Russian Drama Theatre in Vilnius (Lithuania), Theatre Joriks and Valmiera Drama Theatre (Latvia).

He is the co-founder of the Young Composers’ Club at Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 2001. Since 2013 he has been active as curator of international new music projects in Russia, since 2015 as the founder and artistic director of the „Trajectory of Music“ cultural platform. Among the projects he has realized as curator has been the 6-day Alvin Lucier Festival “Everything Is Real” in Moscow.

Le Chant du Monde publishes some of his works.