Maria Gambaryan

Maria Stepanovna Gambaryan is a Soviet and Russian pianist and music educator, born on October 1, 1925, in Yerevan. Her musical education began in 1937 at the Central Children's Music School at the Moscow Conservatory, in the class of Professor A. V. Shatskes. She later studied at the Moscow Conservatory under the renowned Professor Konstantin Igumnov, graduating in 1948. She completed her postgraduate studies at the same institution in 1951.

As a concert pianist, Gambaryan toured successfully both within the USSR and internationally. Her international engagements included a masterclass in Spain in 1991, and in 1992, two of her compact discs were released in Korea. She has shown a deep commitment to Armenian music, frequently including works by the composer Komitas and other Armenian composers in her solo concert programs. Furthermore, she has dedicated herself to arranging Komitas's compositions for chamber ensembles.

Gambaryan has also had a distinguished career as a pedagogue. From 1956 to 1960, she taught at the Leningrad Conservatory. In 1960, she moved to Moscow and began her long and influential tenure as a professor at the Gnessin State Musical College (now the Gnessin Russian Academy of Music), where she leads a piano class.

For her significant contributions to the arts, Maria Gambaryan has received numerous state honors. She was named an Honored Artist of the Armenian SSR in 1965 and an Honored Artist of the Russian Federation in 2005. In 2016, she was awarded the Movses Khorenatsi Medal for her great merits in the field of musical art and her significant contribution to strengthening Armenian-Russian cultural ties. That same year, she also received the Komitas Commemorative Medal from the Music Society of Armenia in recognition of her services to piano performance, her pedagogical activities, and in honor of her 90th birthday. Her husband was the playwright Vladimir Mikhailovich Volkenstein (1883–1974).

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