{"id":3772,"date":"2017-02-01T11:54:26","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T16:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/?p=3772"},"modified":"2017-05-03T13:18:23","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T17:18:23","slug":"chobanian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/2017\/02\/01\/chobanian\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical Maestro"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>By Julie Butters &amp; Lara Ehrlich<\/h4>\n<div class=\"media picture w_550\">\n<p class=\"caption\">Banner image: Aram V. Chobanian (Hon.\u201906) (right), BU president emeritus and School of Medicine dean emeritus, has written songs, a sonata, a string quartet, and an opera. <span class=\"credit\">Photo by Kalman Zabarsky<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Aram V. Chobanian (Hon.\u201906), BU president emeritus and School of Medicine dean emeritus,<\/strong> has loved classical music since childhood, when he listened to opera and symphony performances on the radio. He attended the symphony while in medical school for cardiology and later taught himself to play the\u00a0piano, occasionally writing songs for his children<span>\u2019<\/span>s\u00a0birthdays and graduations.<\/p>\n<p>Chobanian planned to enroll in CFA upon completing his term as dean of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/\">BU School of Medicine<\/a>\u2014but he became the University\u2019s president instead. Far from giving up on music, he studied music theory with then-graduate student Matt Van Brink (\u201902,\u201905) and soon gained enough confidence to write and perform songs for BU students at the first graduation breakfast over which he presided.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve spent my life as a physician-scientist with involvement in research and exploring new ideas,\u201d he says. \u201cThat may be one of the reasons I have gone into music. I have no idea what it\u2019s all about, and then I try and figure it out. Medicine and music are quite intensive types of activities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chobanian went on to take lessons with Justin D. Casinghino (\u201909), a CFA lecturer in music, composition, and theory, with whom he has explored different genres; he\u2019s written songs, a sonata, a string quartet, and an opera titled <em>Tom<\/em>, based on Henry Fielding\u2019s novel <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_History_of_Tom_Jones,_a_Foundling\"><em>Tom Jones<\/em><\/a>. In December 2016, CFA students and alums recorded <em>Tom<\/em> on a CD for Chobanian\u2019s edification and personal enjoyment. The experience of hearing his music performed was \u201cextraordinary,\u201d he says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d He is now working on a musical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Julie Butters &amp; Lara Ehrlich Banner image: Aram V. Chobanian (Hon.\u201906) (right), BU president emeritus and School of Medicine dean emeritus, has written songs, a sonata, a string quartet, and an opera. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky Aram V. Chobanian (Hon.\u201906), BU president emeritus and School of Medicine dean emeritus, has loved classical music since [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10779,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3772"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10779"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3772"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4307,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3772\/revisions\/4307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}