Washington Post
Sept 30 2005
A Maestro Awaits the Coda
After Eventful Journey, Conductor Hopes to Restart Music in Arlington
By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 30, 2005; Page B01
The maestro’s baton remains unused in its wooden case on the
bookshelf by the front door. His musicians have scattered to other
jobs. His small but proud orchestra has vanished, its office in a
Virginia shopping mall dim, locked and vacant.
Decades after he studied in Moscow and Vienna and conducted the
Bolshoi Opera, and 17 years after he gave the KGB the slip in Bolivia
and defected to the United States, the aging maestro sits in his
small apartment in Ballston: infirm from heart and circulation
problems, hoping for another chance to raise his boyish hands and
conduct once again.
Photo: Ruban Vartanyan, former conductor of the defunct Arlington
Symphony, at his home in Arlington. He lives alone in a one bedroom
apartment in Arlington. Ruban talks to reporter. (James A. Parcell –
Twp)
This time of year, Ruben Vartanyan, 69, an “orchestra maker,” as he
calls himself, and former conductor of the Arlington Symphony, should
be at the start of a season. But on July 15, the 60-year-old symphony
— “the orch,” to its musicians — declared bankruptcy, and
Vartanyan, its eloquent and beloved conductor for 13 years, was out
of a job.
He spends much of the day in his apartment, alone but “absolutely
self-sufficient,” surrounded by literature, musical scores and record
albums. He is bald and diminutive with pale, youthful-looking hands.
He has much of the world’s great classical music committed to memory.
And he has a personal history as grand as an opera.
As a child, he fled with his mother in 1941 when the German army
began to encircle Leningrad. He was schooled by some of the 20th
century’s towering figures in classical music. As a conductor, he was
tossed on the currents of the Cold War, fell into the bad graces of
the Soviet Union’s intelligence service and slipped into the United
States.
Vartanyan surfaced after his defection at a news conference at the
National Press Club on Sept. 22, 1988, when he said he could no
longer live and work in the U.S.S.R.
His professional life had begun there with great promise. The son of
a brilliant Armenian clarinetist in a Soviet army band, Vartanyan
said he got a superb musical education in Russia.
He also studied for a year in Vienna under the late Austrian
conductor Herbert von Karajan and went on to conduct across Europe
and America.
In 1971 he went to La Paz, Bolivia, to conduct the national symphony
for a year. Three weeks later, Bolivia’s leftist regime was
overthrown in a rightist coup.
As a Soviet artist, Vartanyan thought he was in trouble. But Gen.
Hugo Banzer, who led the coup, liked music. He extended the
conductor’s stay and admitted him to the government’s inner circles,
Vartanyan said.
This, he said, soon became of interest to the KGB, which asked him to
inform on the Bolivians. He said he declined. When he returned to the
Soviet Union six years later, he found himself out of work and with a
menacing black sedan constantly parked outside his apartment
building.
He persevered and three years later landed a job conducting the famed
Bolshoi Opera. But he was still under a cloud, and when his wife died
in 1986, he vowed to defect. His chance came two years later, when he
was allowed to go back to Bolivia to conduct for a few weeks.
Vartanyan’s dark eyes grew serious as he told the story at his dining
room table one recent morning. He declined to provide “technical
details” of his escape, saying only that “it was very difficult and
very dangerous.”
Ruban Vartanyan, former conductor of the defunct Arlington Symphony,
at his home in Arlington. He lives alone in a one bedroom apartment
in Arlington. Ruban talks to reporter. (James A. Parcell – Twp)
Now a U.S. citizen, he said he has no regrets: “This is a country
that I love immensely. . . . This is my country forever. . . . We are
simply living in difficult times, and we need to learn how to survive
in these difficult times.”
Once a traveler among the great musical capitals of the world, he
settled in Virginia, conducted in school auditoriums and adopted
Arlington and its symphony as his own. “I am convinced Arlingtonian,”
he said. “I will die here.”
The Arlington Symphony, which traced its roots to the old War
Production Orchestra of 1945, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after a
decline in fortunes over the past several years, according to former
board members and musicians.
It had accumulated $139,000 in debt, canceled its final concert May
14 and owed money to, among others, scores of ticket holders and
musicians. Vartanyan is owed almost $3,000, according to court
filings. The orchestra had $94,000 in assets.
The symphony employed 60 to 90 part-time professional musicians, many
of whom remain devoted to Vartanyan. “We loved him,” said Wes
Nichols, the principal oboist. “He is a terrific, world-class
musician who just fell from the sky to those of us who play around
here.”
Vartanyan was hired in 1992. Mary Hewitt, the only symphony board
member to vote against filing for bankruptcy, was on the search
committee that found him. “There was something about this man that I
felt was very special,” she said.
His last concert was an April 8 performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s
“Requiem.” “Very symbolic,” Vartanyan said.
Now there is a move afoot to resurrect the symphony in a more modest
form. Exploratory meetings have been held, and there is interest
among former musicians and supporters.
“Myself and musicians, we have expectations . . . that the board of
Arlington County, business community of Arlington County and our
audience in general will help us to continue our educational and
artistic work,” Vartanyan said.
But the odds are long. Funding is scarce. And the work to rebuild
could be enormous.
The old conductor, though, is available. His wooden baton — “my
Stradivari,” he joked — is ready. “I’m a strong man,” he said. “I’ve
seen in my life so many things. . . . I don’t give up.”
From: Baghdasarian