Stéphan Elmas

Stéphan Elmas (Armenian: Ստեփան Էլմաս; 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an Armenian composer, pianist and teacher.

Elmas was born into a family of wealthy entrepreneurs in Smyrna (now İzmir), a city in the Ottoman Empire. It was soon discovered that the little boy was a child prodigy: he began taking piano lessons and writing short piano pieces under the tutelage of a local music teacher, Mr. Moseer, and already at the age of thirteen, the young virtuoso performed an all-Liszt piano recital.

In July 1879, with the encouragement of his teacher – but against the wishes of his family – Stéphan Elmas left for Weimar, Germany, hoping to audition for Franz Liszt. Here he was able to meet the great master: Liszt advised him to go to Austria and work with Professor Anton Door at the Vienna Conservatory [a.k.a. University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna] and Franz Kremm, the distinguished composer and church musician.

In Vienna, the seventeen-year-old Stéphan divided his time between studying the piano and composition, making his Vienna debut in 1885: an event which received many accolades in the press. Elmas continued to compose, writing many character pieces, including waltzes, mazurkas, nocturnes and impromptus. He dedicated his 6 Etudes (1881) to Franz Liszt and a number of pieces to Victor Hugo.

Elmas stayed in contact with Liszt and frequently sought his advice. In 1886, he briefly returned to his native Smyrna to attend his father’s funeral, but returned to Vienna convinced that Europe had much more to offer him. On February 24, 1887, he gave a highly successful recital in Vienna’s Saal Bösendorfer. A busy concert schedule followed, with Elmas scoring artistic triumphs in France, England, Germany, Austria and Italy. He mostly programmed his own works, but also performed Beethoven, Chopin and Schumann.

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