Loris Ohannes Chobanian, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of Composition and Guitar as well as Composer-in-Residence at Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory, Loris Ohannes Chobanian was born to Armenian parents in the Middle East. He was introduced to serious music at an early age. His father Ohannes Chobanian, an oil engineer and an amateur musician, was a versatile performer on the piano, the flute and the violin and often performed in quartets of Haydn, Mozart and Schubert. Chobanian performed the Classical Guitar regularly on Baghdad TV In the 1950s. He came to the US in 1960 and performed on TV in Louisiana and in Michigan.
Highly successful and versatile as a composer, Dr. Chobanian is equally at home with complex contemporary textures and colorful orchestration. He was instrumental in establishing the BW Conservatory Guitar and Composition programs as well as the Focus Contemporary Music Festival. He has taught at the Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Akron.
Winner of many ASCAP awards and grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the Cleveland Arts Council, an award for excellence from the University of Loyola, New Orleans, LA, he was the recipient of the 1981 Cleveland Arts Prize. Among his many commissions include those from the Cleveland Ballet, the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, the American Wind Symphony, the Toronto International Guitar Festival, the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Groton Central School in New York, the Nebraska Wesleyan University, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony and the Skidmore College Orchestra, Saratoga Springs, NY.
An expert conductor, he often conducts his own compositions as guest composer with university, high school and professional orchestras. Chobanian's compositions written for orchestra, symphonic wind ensemble, ballet, chamber music, choral and solo works are published by more than twelve publishers and many of his compositions are recorded on the following labels: New World, Dorian, Albany, GSP, Musicaphon, Blaze of Glory and BIS.
Chobanian's composition Sinfonietta for Violoncello and Orchestra was performed by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony conducted by Maestro Steven Smith with Regina Mushabac, cello, on Sunday, April 9, 2006, at the Gamble Auditorium of Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory, Berea, OH. Both orchestra and soloist were exceptional and deserved the prolonged ovation. According to the program notes: Sinfonietta celebrates the triumph of the human spirit (man/woman), undaunted by challenges and restraints. The individual represented by the soloist is given full reign to soar at unexpected heights. The orchestra, instead of being an antagonist, hails this triumphant outreach and joins in support of the celebration capitalizing on the acquisition of individual liberties as the means to secure the well being of the entire society. The overlapping pitch sets create strong tonal centers and the chromatic concentration never exceeds eleven pitches. Tension, however, is created by extreme wide leaps which give the linear design a fresh and uninhibited quality. The soloist generally performs at a very high tessitura. The Cleveland Plain Dealer Music Critic Donald Rosenberg tated: BW faculty member Chobanian's Sinfonietta places a vehement, poetic cello soloist in close encounters with a chamber orchestra. The cello pleads and sings in its highest registers asserting its individuality even as it engages in darkly urgent conversation with instrumental colleagues. Regina Mushabac, another long time BW faculty member, brought commanding expressivity to the solo part.
During the academic year 2005-2006 Dr. Chobanian has premiered three new compositions: Miniatures for Violoncello and Orchestra was premiered by the BW Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dwight Oltman with Regina Mushabac, cello, Divertimento that was premiered with a Cello Orchestra of forty cellists conducted by the composer, and The Mad Violin for solo violin which was written for and premiered by violinist Julian Ross.
Chobanian's composition Dowland in Armenia commissioned by Lutenist Paul Dettewas premiered at the Toronto International Guitar Festival and was recorded by Lutenist Peter Croton in Switzerland. The composer has transcribed the composition to other instruments such as the guitar, the cello and the violin. Guitarist William Kanengiser transcribed it for the guitar and recorded it on a CD entitled Echoes of the Old World. When Professor Julian Ross performed the violin version of the amiable Dowland in Armenia, the composer felt that a omplementary work was needed to balance the gentle side of the violin with one that is strident and wild. In The Mad Violin the instrument bursts into turbulent and tempestuous textures making it sound as if more than one instrument is playing.
Other works to be premiered are Rhapsody for Alto Saxophone and String Orchestra written especially for Professor of SaxophoneGreg Banaszak and a new work Texturas - Piano Trio No 2, in five movements, written for the Elysian Trio. The Ludwig Music Publishing Co. has recently published Komitas - The Tortured Soul for String Orchestra based on melodies by Komitas Vartabed. The composition depicts the last days of the master.