Nareh Arghamanyan, piano

In her early twenties the Armenian pianist Nareh Arghamanyan, winner of the 2008 Montréal International Music Competition, belongs to the promising generation of today’s fine pianists.

Nareh Arghamanyan’s first European season in 2011/12 included remarkable debuts with orchestras such as the Vienna Symphony, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, the NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and the Wiener KammerOrchester. Her recitals including the Tonhalle Zurich and the Berliner Philharmonie prompted enthusiastic reactions, the Neue Zí¼richer Zeitung wrote: “Nareh Arghamanyan impressed with wonderfully sparkling articulation, imaginative dynamic shaping and a convincing dialogue between bass and melody.”

Continuing the success the 2012/13 season sees Nareh Arghamanyan’s debut with the Tonhalleorchester Zurich and Neville Marriner (Saint Saens 2; supported by the Orpheum Foundation Zurich). She will give her Nordic debuts with the Oslo Opera Orchestra and Kirill Karabits (Prokofiev 2) and with the Norrkoping Symphony and their new Chief Conductor Michael Francis (Tchaikovsky 1). Other orchestras include the Brandenburgisches and Berner Symphonieorchester and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. Conductors she works with are Christian Arming, James Gaffigan, Michael Seal, Carl St Clair, Kazuki Yamada, Xian Zhang, Jean-Marie Zeitouni and Eivind Gullberg Jensen.

In recital Arghamanyan gives her debut at the Wigmore Hall London with violinist HyeyoonPark. With this new duo she returns to other prestigious venues such as the Tonhalle Zurich, a range of German and Austrian promoters as well as to Cyprus. Recent festival appearances included the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Davos Festival, Tanglewood Festival, Festival de Lanaudière and the prestigious Marlboro Festival.

Across the Atlantic Nareh Arghamanyan returns to New York for a recital at the Lincoln Centre, moreover she appears at the Boston Gardner Museum Concerts and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Orchestras include the Columbus Symphony, following her debuts with the Vancouver and Utah Symphonies as well as the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal.

In April 2012 Nareh Arghamanyan released her debut recording with solo works by Rachmaninov for the Dutch label Pentatone. This is followed by a Liszt concerto disc with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Alain Altinoglu in Autumn 2012. Previously the Analekta label released a disc of the Rachmaninov 2nd Sonata and Liszt B minor Sonata to great acclaim.

Nareh Arghamanyan has won an impressive number of awards, including the 1st Prize at the 2007 Piano Campus International Competition in Pontoise, the 2nd Prize at the 2007 Jose Roca International Competition in Valencia and the 2005 Josef Dichler Piano Competition Vienna.

Born in Armenia, she has played the piano since the age of five. Three years later she began her studies with Alexander Gurgenov at the Tchaikovsky Music School for Talented Children in Yerevan. In 2004 she was the youngest student to be admitted to the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she studied with Heinz Medjimorec and chamber music still with Avedis Kouyoumdjan. Since 2010 she continues her piano studies with Arie Vardi in Hannover.