Composer. Richard Yardumian is recognized as a 20th Century Armenian-American classical music composer. He was the tenth and last child of Armenian clergyman Rev. Haig Yardumian, an immigrant from the Ottoman Empire. He taught himself piano and composing at a young age, and was mentored by his older brother Elijah, a pianist who had studied at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute. By the age of twenty, Yardumian had completed the majority of his most popular piece, "The Armenian Suite" for orchestra. At that time, he joined the Swedenborgian "Lord's New Church Which Is Nova Hierosolyma" in Bryn Aythn, Pennsylvania, where he settled and was the church's music director since 1939. He married Ruth Seckleman, who was an assistant to Leopold Stokowski, a renowned conductor who encouraged Yardumian's musical efforts. Together they had thirteen children, including pianist Vera and painter Nishan Yardumian. During World War II, he served in the United States Army, mainly in the Philippines. His work had attracted the attention of Eugene Ormandy, who in 1945 conducted his "Desolate City" at a Philadelphia Orchestra concert, which was the start of a long partnership between them. More formal education was obtained at Pierre Monteux' conducting school the summer of 1947 and with American composer Virgil Thomson in New York city between the years of 1952 and 1954. Ormandy championed Yardumian's work, premiering a great deal of his compositions and also designating him the composer-in-residence or "composer laureate" of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1949 to 1964. Yardumian found musical inspiration to a degree in Armenian music, but designed a twelve-tone system of his own. His works feature many religious and mystical aspects, and despite being twelve-tone in nature is not severely dissonant or harsh. A theme from his "Armenian Suite" was used as a signature for Voice of America news broadcasts. Some of his other works include two symphonies, oratorio "The Story of Abraham"; "Come Creator Spirit," unique for being a Catholic mass penned by a Protestant; and the string quartet "Cantus animae et cordis." He died of a heart attack at age 68 and is buried in a wooded grove close to the church he served as musical director for most of his life.