Noemi Pismis

also known as: Noemie Pismis, Noemie Pichmichian, Noemi Pichmician, Noyemi Pishmishian

Noemi Pichmichian was born on 2 January 1914 in Istanbul (at that time Constantinople, in the Ottoman Empire). She came from an Armenian family and appears to have belonged to the old Pishmishian or Pişmişyan family of Constantinople. Her mother was Mathild Pichmichian, who later became the owner of a café in Budapest, while Noemi's brother Levon worked as a café manager. The name of her father has so far not been identified.
At some point before 1932 the Pichmichian family moved to Hungary. From 1932 Noemi studied piano at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. She first attended the piano preparatory class of Emanuel Hegyi and studied solfège with Jenő Ádám. She subsequently studied piano with Jenő Kerntler until 1937. The Armenian-Turkish historian Kevork Pamukciyan later described her as the first female student from Turkey to study at the Liszt Academy and reported that on 17 April 1937 she gave a successful concert in Budapest devoted to works by Franz Liszt.
After completing her studies Noemi Pichmichian appeared regularly as a pianist in Budapest and at other Hungarian venues. She was also closely connected with the small Armenian community of Budapest. An Armenian report written in Budapest in November 1946 described her as a pianist who had completed her conservatory studies and had already given several concerts. 
The Pichmichian family appears to have operated cafés or confectioneries in central Budapest. A Pichmichian confectionery is documented in the city before 1940, while a café bearing the family name was remembered as a meeting place for writers and artists during the 1930s. The Hungarian poet József Attila is known to have frequented a Pichmichian café in 1937. A Pichmichian café run by an Armenian proprietor is also mentioned in recollections of Budapest cultural life shortly after the Second World War. Although the exact relationship between the various establishments has not yet been clarified, the evidence corresponds well with the contemporary descriptions of Mathild as a café owner and Levon as a café manager.
In a later published composition, the collection of easy piano pieces "Yasmina donne un récital", Noemi Pismis is described as an "ancienne élève de Béla Bartók" and as "professeur à l'Académie Nationale de Musique de Budapest". These statements are difficult to verify. The Bartók Archive has no record of Pichmichian as one of Bartók's pupils, although Bartók was still teaching at the Liszt Academy during the first years of her studies there. It therefore remains possible that she received occasional or private instruction from him which left no documentary trace. Similarly, the archives of the Franz Liszt Academy contain no record of her holding a professorship. The French term "professeur", however, can also simply mean teacher, so she may at some point have taught, assisted, or worked in some less formal capacity at or around the Academy. At present neither claim can be confirmed independently.
Noemi Pichmichian can be traced in Hungarian newspapers into the late 1940s. She was still living in Budapest in 1946 and appears in Hungarian sources until at least 1948, but no later Hungarian record has so far been found. Sometime between the late 1940s and the mid-1950s she moved to France. A manuscript dated 1956 is signed at Rosny-sous-Bois, a suburb east of Paris, providing a secure indication that she was living there at that time.
In France she generally used the shorter form Noemi or Noémi Pismis. This should probably not be understood simply as a new French surname adopted after emigration. Both the shortened form Pismis or Pişmiş and the longer Armenian form Pishmishian or Pişmişyan were already associated with the family, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France later classified "Noémi Pismis" as a pseudonym. The exact legal form of her surname in France remains unknown.
No evidence has so far been found that she continued a public career as a concert pianist in France. She may instead have worked mainly as a private piano teacher. A signed copy of one of her educational piano compositions is dedicated to "ma petite Martine Bouguin", which may point to a pupil of hers.
Nearly all of Noemi Pismis's known compositions date from the 1950s. They were published in Paris by the publishing house L. Philippo. These include the collection of easy piano pieces "Yasmina donne un récital", "Alla Turca", "Le grand carillon", "Le torrent" and the song "Loin des jardins" for voice and piano. "Alla Turca", published in 1954, was dedicated to Behiç Erkin, the prominent Turkish diplomat who had previously served in Budapest and later in Paris. Whether this dedication reflects a personal acquaintance is not known.
In 1957 Philippo also published "23 octobre – Hymne de l'insurrection hongroise" for voice and piano, with both words and music by Noemi Pismis. The work commemorates the Hungarian Revolution that began on 23 October 1956 and suggests that, despite her move to France, she maintained a strong emotional connection with Hungary. "Yasmina donne un récital" remained in the Philippo catalogue at least until 1970.
Curiously, despite these various traces of her life in Istanbul, Budapest and France, no reliable information has yet been found concerning her later years. Neither a marriage nor a confirmed date or place of death has so far been identified. Her mother Mathild and her brother Levon likewise disappear from the currently known records after the mid-1940s. Noemi Pismis therefore remains a surprisingly elusive figure: an Armenian-born pianist trained in Budapest, active in the city's musical and Armenian cultural circles, later a composer and probably music teacher in France, whose life after the 1950s is still largely unknown.

Le Bosphore au clair de lune

In my possession is the autograph manuscript of the composition "Le Bosphore au clair de lune" for violin and piano by Noemi Pismis. The work was composed in 1959 and is signed at the very end with "26. III. 1959, Rosny-sous-bois". The work is dedicated to the memory of the father of Noemi Pismis. And curiously she writes her name in this manuscript "Noemie Pismis", although all published scores of her music and earlier newspaper articles name her "Noemi".