Sergey Khachatryan is an Armenian violinist born (in Yerevan, Armenia)
on April 5, 1985. He has managed to
establish a very busy and successful career from a very young age. After Ivan Galamian, he is the most famous
Armenian violinist. His violin studies
began at age 6 (one source says age 5) with Pyotr Haykazyan in his native
Armenia. At age 8 (1993), he moved to
Germany with his family. There, he
studied with – among others - Hrachya Harutyunian (concertmaster of the Stuttgart
Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, and the Munich Philharmonic.) At age 9, he played his first orchestral
concert in Germany, which, as far as I know, is still his home base. He began to study in Karlsruhe under Josef
Rissin at age 11. Khachatryan credits
Rissin with most of his violinistic development and – as Jascha Heifetz did
with his own teacher, Leopold Auer – still asks Rissin’s advice. After winning the Sibelius competition at age
15 (the youngest winner in the competition’s history), Khachatryan began to be
engaged to play concerts far and wide. His
first orchestral recording (the Sibelius concerto) was released in 2003. He was 18 years old. In 2005, he won the Queen Elizabeth
competition, another prestigious violin competition. Khachatryan made his New York debut on August
4, 2006 playing the Beethoven concerto at the Mostly Mozart Festival. On February 28, 2007, he played the Sibelius concerto
with the New York Philharmonic. Kurt
Masur was on the podium. He has played
with all the major orchestras and with most of the top names in the conducting
world since then. As does Gil Shaham, he
sometimes plays recitals with his sister as piano accompanist. Khachatryan actually recorded his debut CD in
2002 with both his sister and his father as piano accompanists. YouTube has several videos of his
performances. Here is one. He has played the 1708 Huggins Stradivarius (from
2005 until 2009), the 1702 Lord Newlands Stradivarius (from 2009 until 2011 –
this violin was sold to a collector for $12,500 way back in 1915 and is now on
loan to violinist Ray Chen), and the 1740 Ysaye Guarnerius (previously played
by Isaac Stern and Pinchas Zukerman.) I
do not know if he is still playing the Guarnerius but I do know the Nippon
Music Foundation provided all three violins to him on loan. Khachatryan also previously played a G.B.
Guadagnini violin from 1773. His sound
has been described as sweet, beguiling, and rich; his playing as “poetic,
introspective. effortlessly virtuosic.” A quote from him: “You see many of today’s
artists go out on stage and you can tell they’re there because it’s their
job. I’m afraid of that word. Every time I go out on stage, I want … to
create a special atmosphere.” Photo is
courtesy of Marco Borggreve, well-known photographer to (mostly European)
musicians.
Tigran Vardanyan is an Armenian violinist and teacher born on July 4, 1977 (Heifetz was 76 years old and had already retired.) He is best known as one of the violinists in the first violin section of the Rochester Philharmonic (U.S.A) and exemplifies the type of highly gifted players (about whom I have been writing lately) who occupy some of the top positions in the best orchestras in the world. Vardanyan is also one of only two Armenian violinists I have on this blog – the famous violin pedagogue Ivan Galamian is the other one. He began his violin studies with his father, a professional violist, at the age of six. Later he attended the Sayat Nova School of Music and the Tchaikovsky Specialized Music School, studying with Professors Levon Zorian and Villy Mokazian. While still very young (age 13), he made his debut with the Armenian Television and Radio Orchestra playing the Mendelssohn concerto. Two years later, he performed the Bruch g minor concerto with the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra. Vardanyan also appeared as soloist with the Armenian Chamber Orchestra during this time. In 1994, Vardanyan came to the U.S. to study with Abram Shtern, at the Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles. Since 1995, he has regularly performed throughout Mexico, and has also presented numerous recitals in that country. In 1996 Vardanyan moved to Rochester (New York) to study with Zvi Zeitlin (a pupil of Ivan Galamian and Louis Persinger) and Oleh Krysa (a pupil of David Oistrakh) at the Eastman School of Music. (Zeitlin is one of the oldest living violinists who is - like Ruggiero Ricci, Ida Haendel, Abram Shtern, Albert Markov, David Nadien, and Ivry Gitlis - still actively teaching) In 1998 (at age 21), Vardanyan won an audition for a vacancy in the Rochester Philharmonic and has been with the orchestra ever since. The year he graduated from Eastman, he made his professional U.S. debut with the Rochester Philharmonic playing the Sibelius concerto - December 30, 2000 (Christopher Seaman conducting.) Vardanyan is a winner of several competitions: First Prizes in the 1991 and 1993 Armenian National Competitions, and the Gold Medal in the 1992 Amadeus Competition for Young Artists, and has received awards from the Leni Fe Bland Foundation, the Maurice Sklar Music Scholarship, the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Encourage Award), and the Starling Foundation at the Eastman School of Music. He continues to perform as a soloist and chamber musician at many music festivals and concert venues in the Middle East, Europe, Central America, and North America. He also teaches at the Hochstein School and Nazareth College in Rochester. His repertoire includes all of the standard concertos (and some that are not so standard – Szymanowski, Glazunov, and Khachaturian.) His particular affinity however is for the small vignettes in the violin repertory, showcased in his recital programs; in fact, his future plans include recording many of these miniatures. He is unusual in that he plays a modern violin (1984) constructed by Ukrainian violin maker, Stefan Melnik (Stefan Melnyk), whose instruments have been very highly praised.
Ivan Galamian (Ivan Alexander Galamian) was an Armenian violinist and teacher (some sources say Persian because he was born in Iran) born on January 23, 1903 - some sources say February 25 and others say February 5 - (Heifetz was 2 years old.) He is remembered as one of the best violin teachers of the 20th Century – an institution at the Juilliard School (New York.) As a young man, Galamian studied at the School of the Philharmonic Society with Konstantin Mostras, in Moscow, where he resided with his family from infancy. It is said he also studied with Julius Conus. Conus taught in Moscow until 1919, so that is entirely possible. Galamian graduated from the school in 1919, at age 16, and began playing in the opera orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre. In 1922, he moved to France where he studied further with Lucien Capet in Paris (1922-1923.) He made his Paris debut on May 5, 1924 although he played another recital there on December 24, 1926 which is also called his debut recital. It has been widely reported that he suffered from an incapacitating but undefined nervous condition (possibly stage fright) and soon gave up his dream of a concertizing career – unlike Ruggiero Ricci who never experienced nervousness when playing. From 1925 until 1929 he taught at the Russian Conservatory in Paris while still performing occasionally. Even at this early stage of his teaching career, he produced a special student in the person of Vida Reynolds, the first woman to play with the first violins of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Galamian came to the U.S. in 1937, where he remained for the rest of his life. While setting up a private studio in New York City he also taught at the Henry Street Settlement House there. He was hired by Efrem Zimbalist – via a recommendation by Zino Francescatti - to teach at the Curtis Institute (1944) and then was also offered a similar post at Juilliard (1946 – some sources say 1948.) In 1944 he founded the Meadowmount Music School (Westport, New York) which operated during summer months – a sort of intense music camp which became very successful. Galamian had hundreds of students and therefore used more than half a dozen teaching assistants – Dorothy DeLay and Robert Lipsett among them. (In 1970, he and Dorothy DeLay acrimoniously parted ways because of a difference of opinion regarding teaching approaches and he refused to speak to her for the remainder of his life. He also tried to get her fired from Juilliard – unsuccessfully.) It has been said that due to his authoritarian methods all his pupils sound the same – unlike Leopold Auer’s. In 1962, Galamian published two books on violin technique which are still in print. He also edited many standard works for violin. As far as I know, he never recorded anything commercially. Among Galamian’s famous pupils are Michael Rabin, Pinchas Zukerman, Eugene Fodor, Tigran Vardanyan, Hyman Bress, Simon Standage, Stuart Canin, Linda Rose, and Ani Kavafian. Galamian taught until the day he died, April 14, 1981, at age 78.
Ani Kavafian is an Armenian violinist and teacher born on May 10, 1948. She first came to the U.S. from Turkey in 1956. She began violin lessons at age 9. Among her teachers were Mischa Mischakoff and Ivan Galamian (Juilliard). Her Carnegie Hall debut took place in 1969. In 1973, she debuted in Paris. Since 1979, she has been much involved in chamber music performances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (New York). She has also served as concertmaster with the Seattle Symphony and is currently the New Haven Symphony’s concertmaster (Connecticut.) Kavafian has taught at the Manhattan School of Music, the Mannes School of Music, and the Sarasota Music Festival but (commercial) solo recordings are very, very few. Her sister Ida Kavafian, with whom she frequently performs, is also a well-known musician.
