Biography
Vazgen Vartanian was born in Moscow, Russia. He graduated from The Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory and completed a Professional Studies Program (obtaining the equivalent of a Master of Fine Arts) at the Juilliard School in New York, USA having received a full scholarship. His teachers were such famous musicians as professors Lev Vlassenko, Dmitri Sakharov and Jerome Lowenthal.
He has an extensive piano repertoire including many cornerstone piano works of all periods. He has given various solo recitals in Germany, Italy and Switzerland as well as in Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and other countries throughout Europe. He has also given master-classes and recitals in Taranto, Italy and in Seoul, South Korea where he had been awarded the first prize and Grand-Prix at The Soo Ree International Competition. Also, as a soloist taking part in many important musical events he has played in the Great Hall of the Moscow State Conservatory, the Moscow International House of Music and other major halls in Russia. He has also performed in the leading venues of Europe, the United States and Asia, such as Lincoln Center and others in New York, the Tohnhalle in Zurich, the Verdi Milan Conservatoire, the Seoul Arts Center Concert Hall etc.
He has collaborated with musicians such as conductors Valery Gergiev, Mikhail Pletnev, and Constantine Orbelian, violist Yuri Bashmet, pianist Nikolai Petrov, as well as with American composer Lukas Foss taking part in important festivals such as The Festival of the Hamptons and Benno Moiseiewitsch in the United States, the Easter Festival, Aram Khachaturian’s 100th Anniversary Festival and Vladimir Horowitz’s 100th Anniversary Festival, The Rachmaninoff Mono-festival at the Svetlanov Hall in Moscow International Music House, the Saint-Petersburg Festival of Palaces and the Kremlin Musical Festival in Russia, the Pietro Longo Festival, the Festival Pulsano in Italy and many others. He has also been invited to took part in The Rachmaninoff Festival in Tambov, Russia to play a Russia premier of Rachmaninoff’s Tarantella (from the two-pianos suite) in Vartanian’s own arrangement and orchestration for piano and orchestra with Russian National Symphony Orchestra under Mikhail Pletnev.
“Vartanian is a hyper-talented young pianist… He becomes a magician, losing himself in Beethoven and Chopin.” – The New York Times Magazine (USA)
“The God given talent. A new star was lighted in the New York sky. Logic of musical thought, an admiring sonority and timbres, flexible, sometimes unexpected, but convincing freedom discovered a great individual interpreting manner” – The New Russian Word (Novoye Russkoye Slovo) (USA)
“The audience would have to go back to the work of Rubinstein and Hofmann to find the same extraordinary technical prowess deployed in the service of a unique musical personality.” – Armenian Reporter – New York / New Jersey News (USA)
“Terrific pianist… Enormous virtuosity!” – The Easthampton Star (USA)
“He is the one of the world's outstanding virtuosi of the most intense individuality.” – Jerome Lowenthal, pianist, prize-winner of Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium and Busoni Competition in Italy, professor of Juilliard
“He is unique. He has a great charisma that captures an audience, makes them listen to each note and every nuance with great intensity and command.” – Constantine Orbelian, pianist, Music Director and Principle Conductor of Moscow State Academic Chamber Orchestra
“He is a great great talent. He has a way of interpreting music that is special, his own… There is always opposition to brilliance. But Vazgen has his faith. He is a sort of musician to whom you always listen with admiration. For someone like me to be in contact with such a musician is a gift.” – Vladimir Krainev, from an interview to The New York Times Magazine, pianist, Professor at Moscow Conservatoire and Hanover School of Music (Germany), first prize winner of Tchaikovsky in Moscow, Lisbon and Leeds Competitions
“Vazgen Vartanian is one of the finest musical talents of his generation, with a fierce creative source. I have seen audiences riveted by the sheer electricity of his artistry… Everything he does at the piano is all about him. His accomplishments are of a master.” – David Dubal, pianist, writer, author of books about celebrated musicians of the past, broadcaster at The New York Times Classical Station on WQXR's “Reflections from the Keyboard”, filmmaker, Emmy Award winner for the film “The Golden Age of the Piano”
