Berge Turabian was born in Cairo, Egypt, on February 7, 1950. He first attended the Mkhitarian School in Cairo, and then continued his education in French, at Collège des Frères. He has been surrounded by music from a very early age.

I was seven when during family gatherings I began to sing Armenian songs, even the complex romance, “The little Boy Saw a Rose” with my grandfather, Sahag Turabian, who would accompany me on piano or violin. He was a real artist – he played several instruments, wrote poetry, and was also a skilled craftsman.

One day, excited by my musical skills he offered me a violin, which never came out of its case. My parents wanted me to take piano lessons, like my brother did, but unfortunately that didn’t work either. But as for the singing, it was very influential and at twelve I sang in a band, “The Sky Devils”, performing international songs in Armenian and foreign community clubs. A memorable event took place when I was thirteen years old and I entered a contest where I was supposed to sing Charles Azanavour’s “La Mamma”, which was a new hit.

For some mischief, I was punished that day and confined to the house. One of the organizers, a charming woman, kept calling my mother imploring her to let me go to the contest. My mother finally consented, but on one condition – she was to take me there and immediately bring me back after my performance. The next morning my mother told me that I'd won First Prize. Even to this day remembering that event encourages me. Afterward I even tried to write songs.

At the age of fifteen, Berge repatriated to Soviet Armenia with his family. He graduated from the State University of Armenia – where he later taught French language and literature. A student in humanities, immersed in the world of literature and languages, he began to write lyrics for his songs and in the late 1960s, was among the wave of chansonniers emerging in Armenia.

One day, with those songs in a suitcase, which I used to sing only among friends (during the Soviet area even to think about publishing them was a sin), I emigrated to the United States. In 1987 he was hired by Columbia University as a library assistant, where he also received his Master's Degree in Library Science. He currently resides in New York and works as a professional librarian at the New York Public Library. As for his songs written in Armenia, “They were left in that suitcase for more than ten years, just piece of papers, memories. But since I was a member of a society where money is everything, I played and sang in Armenian restaurants and at parties on the weekends for many years with a band of three. I used to sing mainly songs that in reality I never liked; they had nothing in common with my mind and spirit.But I could fool my audience that I was doing my job with love, and sometimes I even fooled myself. And my songs? Nobody would enjoy them. But sure enough, the thought of being a failed singer/songwriter stubbornly followed me. I am thankful for that obsession. Thanks to it my songs, one day,rose from their ashes like a phoenix. They were recorded and produced, more have been written and produced, and new ones are coming....

Berge Turabian is a self-taught singer/songwriter. In his multifaceted songs, the text predominates with intense images, play of language, wit and sensory evocations. His first CD, produced in 1999, "Somewhere & Someday" contained songs in which the lyrics and music were written by him. Subsequently he has produced four other CDs in the series “The Armenian Poets in Songs”: “Charents – the Armenian Poet in Songs,” “Hayeren” (poetry of Western and Eastern Armenian poets), “Your Name” (the poetry of Vahan Tekeyan), and “Bird Soul” (the poetry of Armenian cotemporary poets from Istanbul: Ikna Sariaslan, Zareh Khrakhuni and Zahrad).

He has had concerts in Yerevan, in different cities of the United States and Canada, and in Paris.