Playing for Her Mother

For classical concert pianist Ritta Bardakjian, playing piano is a gift her parents gave her when she was just a child growing up in Kuwait in the 1970s. The gift originally came in the form of a piano that her parents shipped from England, where they traveled frequently on business. “I sat at the piano whenever I felt lost, lonely or sad,” says Bardakjian, a Pacific Palisades resident who earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from USC last May. The rich and soothing power of music has inspired Bardakjian throughout her life, and became particularly resonant last July, when her mother passed away. “I wanted to do something in my mom’s memory,” says Bardakjian, who organized a concert that will take place on May 20 at 7 p.m. at Pepperdine University’s Raitt Recital Hall. “I just know she would want me to continue to practice and perform.” Bardakjian’s program will include Beethoven’s Opus 13 (Path’tique), Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 (“Funeral March”) and Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes because her mother, Jackline, “adored Schumann.” Bardakjian, who is Armenian, grew up listening to Western as well as Eastern music. She started playing piano when she was about 5 years old and studied with a teacher from South America who was “very focused and intense.” As young Ritta developed her playing skills, the teacher advised her mother to send her outside Kuwait where she would have the opportunity to seriously pursue her talent. So, when Bardakjian was 13, she went off to a boarding school in Uppingham, outside London. Her choirmaster at the school encouraged her to audition for a conservatory in London and, two years later, she was training at the London School of Music, where William Lloyd Webber (Andrew Lloyd Webber’s father) was director. Bardakjian received her music degree from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and made her Canadian debut in 1981, performing Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. In 1983, at age 20, she got the opportunity to play at Carnegie Hall because the Armenian Ladies’ Guild was looking for Armenian talent and chose her to perform at an event. She says she wasn’t nervous because “when you’re young, you’re more gutsy. Egos don’t play as big a role.” It was a thrilling experience just knowing she was “touching the keys the greats have touched.” Bardakjian was accepted to The Julliard School and the Paris Conservatory on scholarships but declined them both to study with Hungarian pianist Georgy Sebok at the University of Indiana while working towards her master’s degree in music. Sebok “taught me that I had to use the piano as an instrument but not battle with it,” says Bardakjian, who has also studied with other renowned artists such as Polish pianist Marek Jablonski and American pianist Leon Fleischer and Kevin Fitz-Gerald. Currently, Bardakjian teaches piano to students as young as 5, though she says that children at that age have to be “exceptional” in their skills. Bardakjian has a 10-year-old daughter, Angelica, who studies piano and ballet. To inquire about lessons with Bardakjian, contact: 573-9622. For tickets to the Pepperdine concert, contact: 506-4522.