Loris Ohannes Chobanian

Loris Ohannes Chobanian (born April 17, 1933) is an American-Armenian composer of classical music, conductor, and guitar and lute teacher and performer. He served as Professor of Composition as well as Composer-in-Residence at Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory.
Early years.
Born in Mosul, Iraq, Chobanian was introduced to classical music at an early age. His father Ohannes Chobanian, an oil engineer and an amateur musician, was a performer on the piano, the flute and the violin. When he was five years old, the senior Chobanian wrote a one-man operetta, "O Loris," which the young Chobanian sang in Kirkuk, Iraq, with his father conducting the orchestra.
In 1951 he graduated from Baghdad College, a High School administered by American Jesuits from Boston, Mass. For ten years, he joined the Komitas Choir in Baghdad that specialized in singing Armenian folk music.
Chobanian studied the classical guitar with Jacque Tchakerian and in 1955 began performing classical guitar regularly on Baghdad Television and worked at the Khanaqin Oil Company. During 1958–1960 he was appointed Secretary to the Director General of Distribution of Oil in Iraq.
Career in the US.
In 1960 he moved to the US to study composition at Louisiana State University (1960–1966) where he completed his bachelor's and master's degrees studying with Kenneth Klaus. He performed regularly on WBRZ-TV Baton Rouge, LA, and later in Michigan performing for the National Educational Television. He received the Ph.D. in music composition from Michigan State University (1970) studying with H. Owen Reed.
He was instrumental in establishing the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music Guitar and Composition programs as well as the Focus Contemporary Music Festival. He has taught at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the University of Akron.
In 1973 he became the first Guitar Division Chairman of the American String Teachers Association. He organized the first ASTA Guitar Conference in Cleveland, which for the first time brought together the university and college guitar teachers in the US and Canada. The conference became the model that has been emulated by conferences of the Guitar Foundation of America ever since.
Winner of many ASCAP awards and grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the Cleveland Arts Council, he also received an award for excellence from the University of Loyola, New Orleans, LA. He was the recipient of the 1981 Cleveland Arts Prize.
He is a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.
Commissions.
Among his many commissions include those from the Cleveland Ballet, the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto International Guitar Festival, the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Groton Central School in New York City, the Nebraska Wesleyan University, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Skidmore College Orchestra, Saratoga Springs, NY, and the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN.
Recent performances of his work.
2009.
Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp Session 2 Symphony Band, Jane Church conductor, performed Movements 1, 2 and 4 of Armenian Dances on July 26 at the camp located in Michigan.
BW Senior Youth Orchestra premiered "Spaceflight."