Beatrice Ohanessian, Iraq’s first concert pianist

Beatrice Ohanessian was Iraq’s first concert pianist and first woman composer. She was born in Baghdad in 1927 into a wealthy Armenian family. Her mother was an orphan who survived the Armenian Genocide.

She headed the piano department of the Baghdad Institute of Fine Arts, and from 1961, for more than 30 years, she was the principal pianist of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra. In 1980, during the Iran–Iraq war, she wrote the first Iraqi composition in the Western style. When asked what reward she would like, she asked for the best piano and was given a Steinway. In her last years she was the organist of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Saint Paul. She died in 2008.

In the photograph she wears a light-coloured lace dress and rests her hands on the back of a chair.