Arthur Meschian

Arthur Meschian
Meschian in 1996
Background information
Born	(1949-03-03) March 3, 1949 (age 67)
Genres	Rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, architect
Years active	1960s–present

Arthur (Artashes) Meschian (Armenian: Արթուր Մեսչյան, born March 3, 1949, Yerevan, Armenia) is an Armenian architect, musician, composer, poet, singer and painter. He is also known as one of the founders of Armenian rock. He was the founder and the lead singer of Apostles (1968 – 1979), the first rock band performing songs in their native language in the history of the Soviet Union. He is the author of different architectural projects, including Guest House and the new building of Matenadaran in Armenia.

Since childhood, Meschian has been interested in music and arts; singing songs in languages ranging from Hungarian to English. At the age of seven, he started taking violin and piano lessons at the school of music named after A. Spendiaryan. It was during those years when he made his first steps in writing songs and joined the boy’s chorus at the National Academic Theater for Opera and Ballet. In 1973, he briefly joined the chorus of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. Even though his stay was short (less than a year) in the chorus, it had a profound influence on his subsequent musical creations. While still at school, Meschian wrote some of his early masterpieces including “Where were you, God?,” “The Will,” and “The Old Man.” In 1965, he first performed his well acclaimed and widely controversial “Where were you, God?” in the auditorium of number 122 secondary school where he was a student at the time. In 1966, he got accepted to the department of architecture at the National Polytechnic University of Armenia.

In 1967, Meschian, along with his friends Levon Melikian and Gregory Nalbandian, founded a rock band which they initially did not give a name. The band was simply referred to as “The Band of the Department of Architecture.” After giving a series of concerts throughout 1967 and on, the band gained an immense deal of acclaim among the youth. By blending Armenian spiritual music with the thriving rock of the time, the band left a remarkable impression on its listeners and became a true revelation. As a result, the activists at the Communist Committee raised concerns about the band’s prolific endeavors. The committee led an anti-Meschian campaign accusing him of anti-Soviet propaganda and calling the band members “Newly Ordained Apostles.” It was, in much part, due to the name calling, that the band was later named “The apostles.” The remarkable success of the Apostles was not hindered by anti-Meschian Communist efforts. In early 1970’s, Meschian composed the first Armenian rock opera, “The Insane Asylum” which vastly contributed to the band’s publicity. Thereafter, the band started giving concerts in numerous universities and cities such as Gyumri, Moscow, Yerevan and Tallinn. In 1971, Meschian gave an outstanding performance in the USSR festival for young musicians in Poland, where the band was only allowed to participate under the guidance of the Communist Committee Activists. Despite the fact that the Apostles found themselves performing in various republics throughout the Soviet Union, they always remained loyal to performing in their native Armenian.