The SMART Center in Lori is the setting for the pivoting point in many young student’s stories: the place they discovered their passion, discovered themselves, and sometimes both. This is the story of one such young adult.

Taron Petrosyan, a 14-year-old from Vanadzor, began his adventurous explorations with sports—to-date, he has tried football, gymnastics, wrestling, track and field, and basketball. His journey now continues at the SMART Center in Lori, where he is actively engaged in musical instruments, programming, and sound design programs.

“Before coming to SMART, I was a quiet and introverted child. Upon my family’s advice, I ended up at the center when I was nine and I didn’t even notice how I gradually became more open to people and to discovering the world,” Taron recalls.

Musical instruments opened up a completely new world for this SMART student. Initially, he wanted to learn to play the guitar, but from the experience of playing percussion instruments for the first time, he has since forgotten about the guitar.

“I bought an electronic percussion set for myself so I could practice what I learned at the SMART Center at home,” says Taron, adding that he would also run to the center’s studio to play during his breaks too.

His adventurous explorations led him to victory in the “Modernizing of Armenian Culture” art competition, organized in collaboration by the Vahe & Lucie Foundation and COAF, where his submission was a reimagining of the sound design for the vintage Armenian-produced animated film, The Journey of Penguin Winn.

“I applied again this year and this time I won in two categories—sound design and musical instruments,” Taron says with undisguised joy, aware of the fact that he is turning his dreams into goals and achieving them.

He only has one crazy childhood dream that may not pan out (but you never know), to become “Spider Man.”

Taron’s face when he found out he won in two categories of the “One Century, Two Legends” art competition.

Taron has been a player for the “Vanadzor 2010s” basketball team for seven months now.

To develop his percussion skills Taron practices with instructional videos.

“The SMART Center helped me with professional orientation. I’m planning on becoming a white hat hacker. At the moment, I’m working on artificial intelligence web design for COAF. With help from Narek, the programming instructor, I already have the mock-up which will be a huge help in completing the project.

SMART students learn how to mix with help from visiting French musician, DJ Kriss, during their musical instruments workshop.

Taron never passes up the opportunity to practice on the professional instruments.

This time Taron took home two prizes from the One Century, Two Legends competition: first place in the “Musical Instruments” category, and third place in the “Sound Design” category.

Author: Knar Babayan