Anna Ambakumyan

Anna Alexandrovna Ambakumyan (; 18 October 1919 – 21 September 1999) was an Armenian pianist and music educator. A professor at the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan and one of the founders of the modern Armenian school of piano playing, she was named Honored Art Worker of the Armenian SSR in 1973 and Honored Artist of the Armenian SSR in 1961.

Life and career Ambakumyan was born in Yerevan on 18 October 1919. She received her early piano training in Yerevan with Yevgine Khankalamyan and continued her studies at the Moscow Conservatory in the classes of Konstantin Igumnov and Lev Oborin, graduating in 1945 and completing her postgraduate studies in 1948.

In the 1940s she taught at the Tchaikovsky Music School and the Romanos Melikian Music College in Yerevan, and from 1948 at the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan, where she headed a department of special piano from 1968 and held the title of professor from 1972.

In 1972 she performed and recorded Komitas's dances; these interpretations were noted for their vividness and for the unity of dance movement and musical thought. Her first public performance of the concerto with orchestra took place in 1972 under Aram Katanyan; her final public appearance with the work was on 18 September 1987 in the Great Hall of the Yerevan Philharmonic (now the Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall) under Emin Khachaturian. In December 1987 she presented the concerto at the Yerevan Conservatory together with a lecture on problems of its interpretation.

She summarized her teaching methods in the book Moi pedagogicheskie printsipy [My Pedagogical Principles], published in Yerevan in 2000, and compiled and edited the collection Concert Pieces for Piano (1971).

Legacy The monograph Muzyka – zhizn' moya [Music Is My Life] by the musicologist Irina Tigranova, published in Moscow in 1994, is devoted to Ambakumyan's life and art. A memorial evening dedicated to her was held at the Aram Khachaturian House-Museum in Yerevan in 2003.

Works Concert Pieces for Piano (compiler and editor), Yerevan, 1971. Moi pedagogicheskie printsipy [My Pedagogical Principles], Yerevan, 2000.