by Lisa Boghosian Papas
She can't claim that before her there was no music in Iraq. But concert pianist Beatrice Ohanessian can boast that she was the first professional musician on a performance level in her country. "In Western classical music, I was the first Iraqi to face Europeans professionally," she says modestly.
Having started piano lessons when she was just 6-years-old, Beatrice is a national idol in Iraq today. She is regarded as the person responsible for making music a serious profession in her country. Through her performances across the globe, including an annual journey to the Mozart Festival in Salzburg, Austria, she brought the Iraqi musical world to others.
Entering the Iraq Conservatory at the age of 11, which was founded by the King's brother for musicians 17-years and older, Beatrice was amongst the first and youngest to be admitted to the program. At 16, after completing her studies, she started working as an assistant to Rumanian piano professor, Julien Hertz. An audition for the first musical scholarship ever awarded to an Iraqi citizen then landed Beatrice the opportunity to study at the Royal Academy of Music where she received her LRAM (licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music) in piano performance and pedagogy, and a second major in singing, four years later.
Upon receiving first prize for her piano exam out of a student body of 800 at the Royal Academy, Beatrice returned to Iraq to teach music at the Conservatory. Around the same time, she was offered a Fulbright Scholarship to train at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. She concluded her year at Juilliard with a debut performance at Carnegie Recital Hall. Her scholarship was then extended for an additional year, after the 1958 revolution in Iraq prevented her from returning home.
"When my second year was up, I went to Minnesota to visit my brother, Arsham and his wife, Charlotte, and played with the Minnesota Orchestra," says Beatrice. "Everyone told me I should stay in America, but an inner voice told me I should go back to Iraq and teach my fellow countrymen to love music. Classical music was new to penetrate Iraq and it needed people like me there to nurture it." So in 1959, she packed her bags, boarded the Queen Mary and sailed to London, and then to Iraq.
When she returned, she began teaching, performing and making music at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad. She was interviewed on Iraqi television, invited to play with orchestras, and traveled throughout Europe, the Middle East, Scandinavia, Russia and Armenia to solo perform. Then in 1969, during a visit to Minnesota to see her brother, Beatrice was offered a teaching position at the University of Minnesota and Macalester College in St. Paul. Two years later, circumstances then took her to Switzerland where she continued to teach and concertize. Urged to go back to Iraq, Beatrice found herself in Baghdad once again in 1974.
"At this point I really dove into the musical world," she says. "Beside teaching, I went on tours every year to Europe. I also became the link between foreign cultural centers and audiences. For example, the ambassadors and attachés of the British Council, the American Cultural Center, the French Institute, the Spanish Cultural Center, and all the other European Cultural Institutes, would contact me to perform their music in Baghdad. Outside Iraq, I was proud to interject the music of Alan Hovaness into my programs and promote the work of a great Armenian artist as well."
For Beatrice, her most thrilling event came in 1980, when she wrote the first Iraqi Western composition contributing to the war efforts. For the first six months of blackouts during the Iraq-Iran war, Beatrice composed and practiced by candlelight. Once the piece was complete, her work was orchestrated, performed, and televised. "It took like fire," she says. "It made the biggest noise throughout the country that I as a woman was composing." Her success at composing encouraged her to write seven others between 1990 and 1994.
After a concert in Russian, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia in 1990, Beatrice left for Minnesota to see her brother. The day she returned to Iraq, Desert Storm began. By then, only her sister, Sita, remained in the country. Her parents had already passed away. Despite the sound of missiles dropping, Beatrice continued to play music inside and outside of Iraq. Her last stint in Iraq was in 1994, when she organized, for the fifth year in a row, the annual Babylon International Festival of Music, Dance and Opera, in which 75 countries participated, and Beatrice performed.
For the past five years, Beatrice has been living in Minnesota, along with her sister, Sita and brother, Arsham. She continues to teach piano at the University of Minnesota and Macalester College, as well as privately. "I've been fortunate to have a beautiful family who supports me," says Beatrice. "That includes my parents who never complained all those years when I was practicing eight hours a day, and my siblings who have not only encouraged me but also accompanied me in performances-Arsham with the violin and Sita with piano. My advice to other musicians starting out is to have a sincerity of approach, a readiness for discipline, and a willingness to sacrifice."
