Shortly thereafter, along with his parents Retheos[1] and Zaruhi and his elder brother Onnig, Berberian moved to Geneva, Switzerland to escape the atrocities against the Armenians perpetrated by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II from 1894 to 1896.
The first job of the fifteen-year-old young man was to teach literature and natural sciences at his alma mater but in 1908, he left for Paris where he studied at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, taking classes in philosophy and metaphysics with Henri Bergson, psychology with Georges Dumas and sociology with Émile Durkheim, thus receiving a thorough education in the liberal arts and obtaining a diploma to teach philosophy.
He contributed essays to Armenian newspapers in Constantinople, mostly to Vosdan (Den) and in 1922, along with Kegham Kavafian, Vahan Tekeyan,[4] Hagop Oshagan[5] and Gostan Zarian, he founded the monthly, Partsravank (Monastery-on-a-Hill), which was devoted to art and literature.
Ardavazt Berberian after living in Jerusalem and Beyruth, moved to Paris with his wife (Paule), where he became a renowned painter and also extremely involved in Armenian culture.
[citation needed] In the fall of 1922, the deteriorating political atmosphere in Turkey impelled him to leave for Europe once more and Berberian settled in Dresden, Germany, where he studied Choreography, in addition to pursuing his philosophical and aesthetic interests.
Strongly supported by Archbishop Torkom Koushagian[6] of Egypt, the school became an intellectual center for the local Armenian community and remained open until 1934 when its shaky finances forced it to close its doors.
[citation needed] After ten years of teaching in Jerusalem, in 1944 Berberian moved to the Catholicosate of Cilicia in Antelias, Lebanon to continue his vocation in education.
[citation needed] Most of Schahan Berberian's songs share a mystic lucidity and spaciousness, and a simple melodic line with minimal accompaniment – notes hanging in midair.
[citation needed] Other Berberian manuscripts, including the incidental music to Oshagan's Sasuntsi Tavit (David of Sassoun) and four scenes from the opera Anush, are at the Library of the Jerusalem Patriarchate.