Straight-faced at the second piano while Victor Borge clowned his way through Liszt, a gifted young Armenian pianist became a beloved fixture of one of the world’s most famous comedy acts, all while pursuing a far more serious mission of his own. Şahan Arzruni, the classical pianist, producer, scholar and writer who devoted his life to preserving and sharing Armenian music, died in Manhattan on October 21, 2026. He was 83.
Arzruni was born on June 8, 1943, in Istanbul, the son of Stepan Jirayr Arzruni and Maryam Kalpak, into a family whose name traces back to ancient Armenian nobility. His aunt, composer Sirvart Kalpakyan Karamanuk, encouraged him to begin piano at four, and he made his first public appearance at five. He attended the Esayan and Getronagan Armenian Lyceums and graduated from the Istanbul Municipal Conservatory, studying piano with Ferdi Statzer and harmony with Raşit Abed.
In 1964, a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation brought him to New York and the Juilliard School, where he studied with Sascha Gorodnitzki, Felix Galimir, Joseph Bloch and Hall Overton, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1967 and his master’s in 1968 before pursuing doctoral studies at New York University.
Beginning in the late 1960s, Arzruni performed as Victor Borge’s straight man in concert, and in 1980 the two appeared at the Royal Variety Performance with Borge’s comic duet arrangement of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. He became a familiar face on television, appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Mike Douglas Show and PBS specials, recorded for the BBC and other European broadcasters, and gave command performances at the White House and for the British, Danish, Swedish and Icelandic royal courts. As a Steinway Artist, he was invited to perform on an 1869 Steinway at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to open the centennial of its historic instrument collection.
Inspired by the ethnic pride he discovered in the United States, Arzruni immersed himself in the roots of Armenian music. He recorded a three-LP ‘Anthology of Armenian Piano Music’ in 1979, co-produced the eight-LP ‘A Survey of Armenian Music’ in 1987 and presented papers and symposia at Harvard, Columbia and the University of Michigan. He contributed to The New Grove Dictionary and the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, and in 2001 delivered a lecture on Armenian liturgical chant at the Library of Congress.
His discography included Haydn’s complete sonatas for piano and violin, works by Khachaturian, Kabalevsky and Bartók, Alan Hovhaness’s ‘Visionary Landscapes’, ‘Midnight Chopin’, ‘Childhood Memories’, ‘Komitas: Complete Works for Piano’ in 2011, ‘Hommage: Piano Works by Early Armenian Composers’ in 2014, ‘Alan Hovhaness: Selected Piano Compositions’ in 2019 and ‘By Women: Piano Works by Armenian Women Composers’ in 2024. As a producer, he championed the music of his aunt, Sirvart Kalpakyan Karamanuk, alongside recordings of Makar Yekmalian’s ‘Divine Liturgy’ and ‘Armenian Composers in Asia Minor’.
In 2008, the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory named him an honorary professor, and in 2015 he received the Movses Khorenatsi Medal, Armenia’s highest cultural honour. Between 2017 and 2024, he travelled throughout Armenia and Artsakh coaching young musicians, giving recitals and photographing ancient monasteries for a series of articles in the Istanbul monthly Paros. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he curated the online concert series “Together for Armenia” to raise funds for the country. His many other honours included the Order of St. Sahak and St. Mesrop and the Knights of Vartan Award.
Şahan Arzruni leaves behind a legacy of music, scholarship and generosity that carried the sounds of Armenia to concert halls, royal courts and recording studios around the world. The pianist who once kept a straight face beside Victor Borge spent a lifetime taking his heritage seriously, and the composers he championed will be heard for generations because of his devotion.
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