Arno Babajanian was born in Yerevan. Babajanian's childhood friend composer Alexander Haroutiunian mentions that starting with the age 5-6 Babajanian attempted to play the old piano of the kindergarten, and one may say that he already made the first steps in music. A.Babajanian used to tell about his and world-famous composer Aram Khachatrian's meeting: "When I was a kindergarten child, a man once visited us and asked to sing to get to know who of us had music ear. I was singing and kicking the floor at the same time. Listening to me, that man said that I must be engaged in music. In future I learnt that the man was Aram Khachatrian." Babajanian composed in different genres: classic, pop music, jazz music, musical, etc. His songs: "Memory," "I Ask You," "Song of First Love," "Yerevan" were very popular in former Soviet countries. His songs were performed by USSR People's Artists Iosif Kobzon, Alla Pugachova, Muslim Magomayev, Eduard Khil, Zhan Tatlian, Raisa Mkrtchian, Bella Darbinian and other famous singers. "Babajanian is one of those individuals who are called to represent a whole nation, its fate and the spirit of lifetime. The artist becomes such one not only owing to the talent given his from above but by his motives of a patriot, by sense of responsibilities having towards the people," composer Ghazaros Sarian wrote. USSR People's Artist Khoren Abrahamian used to repeat that "Arno was the most talented artist of the Armenian reality of the second half of the 20th century as the God gifted him greatest genius." Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.