Erna Gulabyan – teacher, judge, and performer of classical music for piano – returns to the judging panel for the 2008 Missouri Southern International Piano Competition.

Gulabyan hails from Yerevan, Armenia, where she cultivated her love of music.

“From the time I was born, I heard music in the house,” she said. “Almost every other

Sunday there were musical evenings where not just my parents, but their friends who loved music too,

performed.”

She started learning when she was three years old – not because she was forced to, but because she loved it, and still does.

Her serious studies began at the Yerevan Central Music High School for especially gifted children. She then studied at the Moscow Conservatory. After graduating, she returned to her alma mater as a member of the piano faculties.

“I truly can’t imagine anything more interesting, or challenging, or more creative and more

fulfilling than being a teacher,” she said.

Gulabyan’s students, as young as 11 years old, have won local, national, and international piano competitions. Many have also performed throughout the United States and Europe.

In 1982, after emigrating to the United States, Gulabyan started teaching at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and her private studio. She still teaches today.

“Time after time I send my heartfelt thanks to my parents, wherever in heavens they are, for bequeathing their love of music to me,” Gulabyan said. “My biggest aspiration as a teacher is do the same for my students.”