Irene Baghdasaryan is a published writer, pianist, and music educator. She graduated from Lark Conservatory as a piano performance student in 2015 and received a B.A. in English with a minor in Music Industry from UCLA in 2019. During her time as an undergraduate, she was an editor of the Westwind Journal, a member of HOOLIGAN Theatre Company, and a featured pianist at the UCLA Luskin Conference Center. She also tied 1st place for her research on “Armenian Language Pedagogies Through the Arts” in the 2019 Undergraduate Colloquium in Armenian Studies. In Los Angeles, she has worked with non-profit music organizations such as Dilijan Chamber Music Series and Lark Conservatory, where she has taught theory and music history classes to kids for 7 years. Also holding presence in the literary world, Irene has written for Nü Sound and College Magazine. Her debut book Lark Around the World: Intro to International Music for Kids, published in September of 2022, is now available here. In this nonfiction book, Irene incorporates a ludic pedagogy towards storytelling in order to introduce children to international musicians, instruments, songs, and fun facts from 33 different countries, spanning 5 continents. It is important to her that minority countries (such as Armenia, Syria, South Africa) be represented within the same conversation as popularized western countries.

Currently, Irene is excited to work as the outreach and media coordinator for the UCLA Armenian Music Program, with the intention of amplifying Armenian voices through music education and performance.