Composer and sound artist

Arman Gushchian was born in Yerevan, Armenia, in 1981 and grew up in Moscow, Russia, since 1993. Since 2022, he has lived in Los Angeles, USA.

Education and teaching

He graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with honors in 2005, where he studied composition with Roman Ledenyov. Subsequently, he studied composition with Roland Moser and orchestration with Georg Friedrich Haas at the Basle Music Academy from 2006 to 2008. In 2010-2012, he took a postgraduate composition course, "Meisterklassen," with Mark Andre and Franz Martin Olbrisch (Computer music) at the University of Music Dresden.

Arman Gushchian has been a faculty member at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he taught theoretical subjects, orchestration, and composition from 2008 to 2013. He also taught orchestration and composition classes in German at the University of Music Dresden from 2010 to 2012. In 2021-2022, he taught the courses "Music and Sound in Theatre" and "Music Theory" at the HSE Art and Design School in Moscow. Since 2026, he has been a faculty member at the Hal-Musco Conservatory at Chapman University, teaching Music Theory and Aural Skills.

Prizes and stipends

He has been a laureate of the Swiss Federal Scholarship (2006-08) and of the DAAD scholarship in 2010. Also, he has been laureate of the Shostakovich competition (Moscow, 2006, for Metanoia for orchestra), the third international Pre-Art competition (Zürich, 2007, for Nihil sive for ensemble), the Pythian Games (St. Petersburg, 2014, Grand Prize for LIK), the All-Russian competition AVANTI (2022, First prize for Absolve, Domine), as well as laureate of the grant programs "Notes and Quotas" and "Russian Music 2.2" (2022). He had a one-year artistic residency at Richard-Wagner-Stätten near Dresden from 2010 to 2011.

Musicians and festivals

His music has been performed in Russia, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the USA, Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Bosnia. Among the performers of his music have been the Grammy-award winner Yuri Bashmet and the Moscow Soloists, Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Dresden Philharmonic, as well as Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Studio for New Music Ensemble (Moscow), eNsemble (St. Petersburg), Intrada Vocal Ensemble (Moscow); Brightwork NewMusic (Los Angeles), Isidore String Quartet (New York); Ensemble Phoenix Basel, Camerata Variabile Basel, Mondrian Ensemble (Basel), ensemble pre-art (Zürich), Ensemble Proton Bern; Apartment House (London); Sinfonietta Dresden, Ensemble Courage (Dresden), Ensemble Assonance (Armenia), and others; conductors Jürg Henneberger, Jurjen Hempel, Lennart Dohms, Ekkehard Klemm, Fedor Lednev, Philipp Chizhevsky, and Fedor Beznosikov; also musicians Konstantin Volostnov, Maximilian Schnaus, Romain Bartheau, Aylen Pritchin, Sergey Suvorov, Artur Avanesov, Denis Sorokin, Sergej Tchirkov, Viviane Chassot and Stephan Schmidt. His music has been played at festivals: Moscow Forum (2003, 2017, 2019), ISCM World New Music Days (2004, Lucern), Tonkünslerfest Zürich (2007), Moscow Autumn festival (2004, 2005, 2009-2011, 2014, 2015, 2017), Lost in Translation (2011, Moscow), Culturescapes Moskau (2012, Basel), Two Days and Two Nights of New Music (2013, Odessa), reMusik Fest (2016, 2020, 2023, St.Petersburg), Yuri Bashmet Festival (2019, Yaroslavl), Crossroads Festival (2019, Yerevan), Lucerne Festival (2023), Hear Now Festival (2025, Los Angeles).

As arranger of classical music for orchestra and ensemble, Arman Gushchian has had cooperation with different orchestras, among which are the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Vladimir Fedoseev, "New Russia" State Symphony Orchestra.

Music for theatre

He has also composed the music and sound design of 10 theatre plays in such theatres as Moscow "Sovremennik" Theatre, Meyerhold Theatre Center (Moscow), Komsomolsk-on-Amur Drama Theatre, Northern Drama Theatre (Tara), Russian Drama Theatre in Vilnius (Lithuania), Theatre Joriks, and Valmiera Drama Theatre (Latvia). "Fariatiev's Fantasies" and "The People's Enemy" have been on the Long list of the main Russian theatre prize "Golden Mask". "The People's Enemy" was named the best play of 2021 in the Omsk state.

Curation

He is the co-founder of the Young Composers' Club at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory since 2001. Since 2013, he has been active as curator of international new music projects in Russia, since 2015 as the artistic director of the „Trajectory of Music" cultural platform. Among his largest curatorial projects has been the 6-day Alvin Lucier Festival "Everything Is Real" in Moscow, 2017. These new music events have collectively gathered about 2500 listeners. 14 World and 17 Russian premieres of works by Russian, French, German, Austrian, and American composers have been presented.