Arie Dakesian is a classical guitarist based in London. Having completed his Masters in Performance with distinction, he has been accepted for an Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music. He is a Houston Family Scholar, a recipient of the prestigious Julian Bream Trust Award, and is currently supported by the Ouzounian Trust and the Wayne Sleep Foundation. He has previously been an award holder of the Royal Philharmonic Society, International Guitar Foundation, Wolfson Foundation, Benlian Trust, St Marylebone Educational Trust, AGBU Scholarships, AMAA Scholarships, and the Kathleen Trust.
In 2024, Arie was named a Tillett Debut Artist, making him only the fifth guitarist to receive this honour since the scheme’s inception in 1995. The award grants a two-year collaboration and a broad platform for performances across the UK.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, to an Armenian family, Arie has been exposed to a wide variety of music from an early age, which is woven into the very fabric of his music-making. Recent engagements feature performances in Kew Gardens, St James’s Piccadilly, Royal Albert Hall, Coutts, Kings Place, and Wigmore Hall.
As a classical guitarist as well as a composer/arranger, Arie has come to realise two things:
“There is almost no Armenian music in the classical guitar repertoire. While Armenia is rich in its musical masterworks, none of the greats have written anything for our humble instrument. Considering the beautiful music we have, I have arranged and transcribed music ranging from folk music (Apricot Tree by Komitas) to piano works (Melody and Humoresque by A. Babadjanian), to popular songs (Viens pleurer au creux de mon epaule by C. Aznavour) for solo guitar. I’m now also in the process of arranging the well-known 14 Armenian Folk Miniatures by Sergei Aslamazyan, which is my centrepiece creative project at present. Originally written for a string quartet, this is being arranged for the ArNor Duo: a violin and guitar duo I co-founded with Polina Sharafyan in 2025. I’ve arranged two of them already, and I am currently in search of sponsors to commission the rest.”
“I also realised that classical musicians, having always written their own music in the past, have now stopped this creative tradition, and there is a creative aspect that is missing in today’s music scene. I’ve made myself a promise to always include at least one original composition in each concert I play. ”
As a Debut Artist for the Tillett Trust, Arie has given over a dozen concerts all over the UK: an opportunity very few musicians get, let alone guitarists. His arrangements of Babadjanian, Aznavour, and Komitas have been heard at the Royal Albert Hall, Kings Place, St James’s Piccadilly, Leighton House, as well as many other stages across the country. He was delighted to play his original composition, Mediterrations, at his Kings Place debut in November 2025.
He plans on collecting the 14 Aslamazyan Armenian Folk Miniatures and releasing them in a complete album, titled REINCARNYL. This will also give him a chance to group his creative work of the past five years, which runs parallel to his busy performance schedule, as well as publish all this music, in order to make it accessible to other guitarists, and add to the arsenal of Armenian music for the guitar.