Vartan melkonian conductor science

Vartan Melkonian appears to be the happiest man I have come across in a long time. Nothing unusual in that except his early childhood and beyond was traumatic to say the least. Born of Armenian refugee parents in Lebanon he was left without a mother at the age of 7 or 8 (he still does not know his birthday!) and was placed in a local orphanage.

The evening spent with Vartan Melkonian combined both an account of his early life and a display of his musicianship, conducting a concert in the second half.

Perhaps he appears so happy because he realises his extreme good fortune in being put into the care of an extraordinary Danish lady, Maria Jacobsen, who left her comfortable home as a teenager, in the late-1890s, and made her way to a place in the then Ottoman Empire before founding an orphanage for exiled Armenian children, called the Birds’ Nest at Byblos in Lebanon.

Her fortitude, kindness and conviction make her a candidate for sainthood.

Vartan Melkonian lived in this haven