Armen Nazaryan

Armen Nazarian - was born in a musical family in Razdan, Armenia. Armen started to play the violin at the age of 6. When his family moved to Yekaterinburg, Russia, Armen continued to study the violin at the local music school. At the age of 10 he was invited to continue studies at the music college for talented students. At the age of 14 Armen started to study the viola with Professor Valery Averin. After three years at the local conservatory, he was invited at the age of 23 during a competition by Professor Yuri Bashmet to continue his studies at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. Armen studied 6 years at this conservatory and finished his viola exams with the maximum score of 10.

At that time, he did not play only as a solo violist, but also as a chamber music player and Armenian folk musician. For the Armenian ensemble «Ani-Armenia» he wrote his own transcriptions for all the musicians. Armen studied in a class of Professor Irina Kandinsky for the chamber music and with Professor Andrei Shishlov for the string quartet. One of the chamber ensembles, which was created during his education at the Moscow Conservatory, was the string quartet «Generozo». In 2010 this quartet was awarded the 2nd prize on the prestigious N. Rubinstein Chamber Music Competition in Moscow. At the same time Armen got the 3rd prize on the 6th International Yuri Bashmet Viola Competition.

In 2012 Armen took part in the masterclasses of the project “London Gates Education Group” with Professor Mikhail Kugel (Russia-Belgium), and he was awarded the certificate to study at any Institution in Europe or Great Britain. In the same year Armen participated in the masterclasses “Lac Leman Music Masterclasses” with the world-famous Professor Nobuko Imai, who invited him to study two years at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in her class. At the same time, he studied chamber music in Hochschüle für Musik und Tanz Köln, Germany with professors A. Spiri and H. Schoneweg. From 2014 he has his own viola class in the Beyond the Music Chamber Music Festival, Spain.

During his study in Amsterdam, he won the first prize in the National Viola Competition 2015 and has been an academist in the Nederlands Philarmonisch Orkest. In 2016 he won a temporary contract with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln. Since August 2016, he is the Principal Viola in the Philarmonie Zuidnederland.