Alan Bardezbanian was born in 1950 into an Armenian family living in Watertown, Massachusetts (USA) and began playing the oud as a child. He was strongly influenced by George Mgrdichian and Richard Hagopian, and went on to study music at Berklee College of Music in Boston. In 1977 he began to study Ottoman classical music under Kanun master Esber Koprucu, and later went on to explore Arabic and Persian music, adding several other instruments to his repertoire. Alan Bardezbanian sadly passed away in November 2006 at the age of just 56.