Death of Richard Yardumian (August 15, 1985)

Richard Yardumian was an Armenian-American classical music composer who was associated to Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra for two decades. 

Yardumian was born in Philadelphia on April 5, 1917. He was the youngest of ten children and began studying the piano at a very early age. His father, Rev. Haig Yardumian, was the founding pastor of the Philadelphia Armenian Evangelical community and his mother, Lucia, was a teacher and organist. 

One of his brothers, Elijah Yardumian, a concert pianist who graduated from the Curtis Institute, served as a musical mentor. Richard Yardumian began composing at age 14 and began a formal study of piano, harmony, theory and counterpoint at age 21, when he married Ruth Seckelmann. They would have thirteen children. By then, he had written his most popular piece, The Armenian Suite, at the age of nineteen. This work, later recorded by several orchestras, was also used as the signature music for “Behind the Iron Curtain,” a radio program of Voice of America. Yardumian’s earlier compositions frequently reflect the Armenian folk songs and religious melodies he was exposed to as a child.  

Yardumian was a private in the army during World War II. In 1945, the Philadelphia Orchestra directed by Ormandy premiered Yardumian’s Desolate City, which marked Yardumian’s public debut as a composer. This was also the beginning of his association with Ormandy, which led to several recordings on the Columbia label. The Philadelphia Orchestra premiered ten of his works, bringing the total performances worldwide to nearly 100.  

In the 1940s, Yardumian became musical director for The Lord’s New Church Which is Nova Hierosolyma, a Swedenborgian congregation, in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, for almost forty years.   

In 1967, Fordham University commissioned Yardumian to write his mass, Come Creator Spirit, in celebration of its 125th anniversary. The work was premiered at Lincoln Center in New York that year with mezzo-soprano Lili Chookasian.  

Yardumian died of complications following a heart attack at home in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, on August 15, 1985.