Sergey Khachatryan

Sergey Khachatryan was born in 1985 in Yerevan, Armenia, into a family of musicians. While his parents and his sister Lusine are all pianists, he is the only violinist. In 1996 he began to study with Prof. Josef Rissin at the Music Academy of Karlsruhe / Germany. The same year Sergey was the youngest student attending the master classes of Shlomo Mintz in Israel, where he was singled out as a major musical discovery.

In December 2000 he won First Prize in the VIII International Jean Sibelius competition in Helsinki, becoming the youngest ever winner in the history of the competition. In 2005 he claimed the First Prize at the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels. As a winner of this prestigious competition he plays the 1708 'Huggins' Stradivarius violin on loan to him from the Nippon Music Foundation.

Since then Sergey has made his debut on the greatest international stages, with conductors as Kurt Masur, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Chailly, James Conlon, Yuri Temirkanov, to name only a few. After his competition success in Helsinki he performed there with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra the violin concertos by Khachaturian (under Mikko Franck) and Shostakovich (under Tugan Sokhiev). His first recording, dedicated to Sibelius' and Khachaturian's violin concertos, has been unanimously claimed by the international press as its successor, the recording with both Shostakovich concertos. Regularly Sergey performs recitals with his sister Lusine Khachatryan.