Romancing the keys

“Reading his letters, one can see how he was reacting to emotional stress,” she said. “He wrote this Romance that is dedicated to her, and the music is so sad.”

Cholakyan uses storytelling in her teaching, said Seyeon Ahn, one of Cholakyan’s piano students.

“The way she teaches, she demonstrates — plays it herself and explains as she is playing, and she describes the lesson as she plays,” Ahn said. “The best thing about her is she is very imaginative. As she is demonstrating, she makes up a story. You need a story to play anything for yourself that makes sense to you and goes along with the music.”

Born in the Soviet Union, Cholakyan received her music education at the Tchaikovsky School for Gifted Children and later moved to Moscow and studied at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. She came to the United States with her parents in 1988, and has lived in La Crescenta since 1992.

She started a family and put her music career on hold but continued to teach music and started preparing for the International Invitational Piano Competition in Florida in 1993.

Then in 1997, through one of her private music students, she met USC professor Norman Krieger. She sent him a note and found he had heard her play at the international competition.

“He asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was caring for my son, who was 7, “ she said. “He told me I needed to start my career in America, get a doctoral degree and be exposed, performing on the stage.”

For a year, she worked hard on her math and English for the entrance exam, then had to wait and pass the audition at USC. After passing the audition, she received a merit scholarship.

“I got full tuition for five years, but I had to maintain my grades,” she said.

She recently graduated from the doctoral program in the Flora L. Thornton School of Music at USC and was named Outstanding Doctoral Graduate.

“It’s the best doctoral student in the whole school,” she said. “It’s wonderful. It’s the big one of the entire school. It’s amazing.”

She made an incredible contribution to the school, said Norman Krieger, professor of piano at USC.

“Her talents are equal as a performer and teacher,” Krieger said. “That’s a tremendous gift and something to be applauded. She has a lot of charisma as a performer. But I think her most important quality is her generosity of spirit. She has the highest standard of musical morality and ethics.”