Aram Shekikyan Doesn’t choose between music and photography…….

Aram Shekikyan describes himself in three words- pianist, composer, and photographer. It is a straightforward introduction, but behind it are three different ways of paying attention to the world.

The piano was the first. Photography came later. Composition grew alongside his musical education. None of these interests replaced the others. Instead, they gradually became connected parts of the same life.

Aram began attending music school when he was a child. After 3 years of piano lessons, at around  10  he started creating his own music. His teachers and classmates responded positively, and that response made him take his interest seriously.

Until then, music had been an important part of his life, but it was still something he was discovering. When he began composing and saw that people around him reacted with interest and encouragement, he understood that music was likely to remain with him for a long time.

“At around the age of ten, I realized that music would become a major part of my life,” he says.

His early musical education also introduced him to the works of some of the most important composers in history. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Khachaturian became part of his world while he was still young. For Shekikyan, this was one of the most valuable things music gave him, not only the ability to play the piano, but also access to the enormous body of music that came before him.

Meeting those composers at an early age changed the way he understood music. Their works showed him how many different ways there were to build a musical world, express an emotion, and communicate an idea without words. That first contact with musical literature influenced the direction of his life.

Photography developed differently. he had been interested in it since childhood, but he began working with it seriously about ten years ago. His interest in the camera was partly connected to curiosity. He wanted to know what was happening outside the world of music.

The piano had drawn him inward, into sound and musical structure. The camera encouraged him to look outward. It pushed him toward new artists, new forms of expression, and unfamiliar ways of seeing.

He became interested in the work of other artists and wanted to understand how they looked at the world. Photography gave him a reason to stop and observe. It also gave him a way to preserve the things that caught his attention before they disappeared.

“I simply want to preserve the moment that captured my attention,” he says. “If something arouses my curiosity, I try to keep it through the camera. I do not want to lose those small moments.”

That idea of holding on to a passing moment is central to his photography. He is not trying to photograph everything. A subject has to make him curious first. It may be a person, a scene, a detail, or an atmosphere. The important thing is that it creates a reaction in him.

The camera then becomes a way of keeping that reaction alive.

There is a similar kind of attention in his work as a pianist. When he plays a piece written by another composer, he does not see the performance as an opportunity to impose his own personality on the music. His responsibility, as he understands it, is to get as close as possible to the composer’s thoughts and feelings.

That means paying attention to more than the notes on the page. He tries to understand the spirit of the period, the style of the work, and the ideas behind it. A performance should help the audience understand the composer and appreciate the composition itself.

The pianist’s emotions are still present, but they should not become the main subject.

“If I perform a work by another composer, my task is to present their thoughts and feelings as accurately as possible,” Aram explains. “I am responsible for helping the listener understand the composer and admire the work first of all.”

This approach requires restraint. A performer has a personal response to every piece, but that response cannot completely replace the identity of the music. Shekikyan sees interpretation as a conversation with the composer. He brings his own understanding to the work, but he also has to listen to what the work is asking from him.

When he plays his own compositions, the situation is different. There, he is not trying to interpret another person’s experience. He can use the piano to say things he does not usually express in daily life.

His own music gives him a private form of communication. Feelings that remain unspoken can find a place in sound. The instrument becomes more than a technical tool; it becomes a way to release something that might otherwise stay inside him.

“When I play my own works,” he says, “I can express all the feelings that I do not express in my everyday life.”

His composing often begins at unexpected times. The music he listens to, the works he is studying, and the art he encounters all influence him. But inspiration does not always arrive through happiness or sadness. Sometimes it comes from being tired.

After a demanding practice session, he may put his main program aside and begin experimenting. Aram searches for sounds, listens to what he has created, and tries different ideas without really  knowing where they will take him. This process allows him to move away from the pressure of practice and simply spend time with the instrument.

The result can be calming.

He describes this kind of work as a way to recover after an intense session. He may begin because he is tired, but after writing a piece, he often feels excited and happy for several hours. The fatigue has turned into something productive.

“I start searching, listening, and inventing,” he says. “It helps me relax after a demanding practice session.”

His way of practicing has also changed over time. When he was younger, learning a difficult composition meant spending many hours at the piano and repeating the same passages again and again. That was the method he knew, and at that age he could devote more time to it.

Later, however, he understood that this approach could not continue forever. Life became busier. Other responsibilities and activities needed his attention. He could no longer depend only on long hours of repetition.

The solution was to work more intelligently. Before sitting down at the instrument, he began forming a clearer plan. Aram thought about what needed to be done and how he could use his time in a better way . Aram’s practice became more flexible, and mind preparation became a larger part of the process.

Years of playing had also made a difference. The technical aspects of a piece became easier for him to learn, which allowed him to focus more of his energy on interpretation and musical understanding.

For Aram, growth as a musician has not meant working less seriously. It has meant learning how to work differently.

His difficulties have not been limited to practice. He has also had to deal with doubt from other people, particularly when it comes to composition.

He believes that musicians often carry strong assumptions about who is allowed to be considered a composer. Contemporary composers are frequently viewed with suspicion. There is a familiar pattern, he says: while a composer is alive, people may dismiss their work or treat it as unimportant. After enough time passes, the same music may be rediscovered and called brilliant.

That attitude can be discouraging for someone writing music today. Aramsays the hardest part was repeatedly facing the same wall, the belief that music written by a living composer could not yet have real value.

Still, the experience taught him something. It made him more patient and more determined. Instead of allowing those opinions to stop him, he decided to keep working and to challenge the assumptions surrounding contemporary music.

At different points, people also told him that he could not be both a pianist and a composer. The two roles were presented as if he had to choose between them. Shekikyan chose neither one over the other.

Today, Aram takes part in both classical and non-classical concerts. His compositions are performed by him, but they are also performed by other musicians. That reality has become the clearest answer to those who doubted whether the two paths could exist together.

Looking back, he says he wishes he had trusted his own feelings more. It is easy for an artist to be influenced by other people’s judgments, especially when those judgments are repeated. But outside opinions can become a problem when they replace a person’s own understanding of what they want to do.

For Aram, trusting himself did not mean ignoring every criticism. It meant refusing to accept someone else’s limits as his own.

He also takes criticism calmly. He considers himself fortunate in that respect because he knows musicians who suffer deeply when their work is criticized. For him, criticism is part of artistic life. It may be unpleasant, but it does not have to determine the direction of the work.

His view of art is connected to this same sense of responsibility. He believes that good music, good photography, and good art in general must have an artistic foundation. A work does not become valuable simply because it is new, unusual, or technically impressive.

There are many works and photographs that he does not personally consider valuable because, in his view, they lack a strong artistic basis or are not fully presented. That does not mean they are completely meaningless. Some may still be interesting experiments. But an experiment and a finished work are not always the same thing.

He admits that this is subjective. What one person considers valuable may leave another person unmoved. The question can be debated for a long time. Even so, Shekikyan believes that artistic foundation is what separates a meaningful work from something that is merely interesting.

He does not think new technology has made the question of sincerity more complicated than it was before. The concern about honest and dishonest art existed long before new technologies appeared. In his view, technology is only a tool.

The important question is how the creator uses it.

Whether a work is sincere depends on the person who makes it, not simply on the equipment or method involved. A camera, a computer, or any other tool can be used in an honest way or a dishonest way. The tool itself cannot determine the value or sincerity of the result.

“Technology is simply a tool,” he says. “How sincere something created with it is depends on the creator and on their sincerity.”

Among his most memorable experiences as a photographer, Aram mentions his photograph “Still”, whose Armenian title is “Դեռ”. The work is especially important to him because it was connected with his first major exhibition in Rome. The exhibition made the photograph part of a larger and particularly memorable moment in his development as an artist.

His most memorable musical experience was his first solo concert. It was the first time Aram had taken on and completed  a big  and a hard program. The concert required some  serious preparation, and overcoming the demands of the program made the feeling of experience  way  meaningful.

Both memories represent a kind of first step: the first major exhibition and the first large solo performance. They were moments when work that had previously been personal became visible to a wider audience.

That idea of taking the first step is also central to the advice he gives younger artists. He does not tell them that they might make mistakes, face criticism, or feel afraid. He believes those things are inevitable.

They will make mistakes. People will criticize them. They will be afraid.

The important thing is to begin anyway.

Once they take the first step, he believes, they can become stronger than their fear. They can correct their mistakes, learn from what went wrong, and continue getting  better and better.  In time, they may even go  way  further than the people who criticized them.

This advice reflects his own experience. He was told that he could not be both pianist and composer, but he continued with both. He faced doubts about contemporary music, but kept writing. He began with the piano, later developed his photography, and found ways for the two practices to coexist.

For Aram these are not separate careers that happen to belong to one person. They are connected by curiosity and attention. Music allows him to communicate through sound. Composition allows him to express what he does not say in ordinary life. Photography helps him preserve the brief moments that might otherwise be forgotten.

Arman continues to move between these worlds, listening, looking, and working. 

Sometimes the starting point is a difficult composition. Sometimes it is exhausting after practice. Sometimes it is a scene that catches his eye. Whatever the starting point, the process depends on the same thing: noticing something and deciding not to let it pass unnoticed.