About
Sergey Khachatryan (also spelled Sergei Khachatryan; Armenian: Սերգեյ Խաչատրյան) (born 5 April 1985 in Yerevan) is an Armenian violinist. Since 1993 he has lived in Germany where he gave his first orchestral concert at the age of nine in the Kurhaus, Wiesbaden.
He made his New York City debut on August 4, 2006, playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto in Avery Fisher Hall under the baton of Osmo Vänskä. In June 2013, he played Shostakovich's first Violin Concerto with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot conducting.
Born in Yerevan, Armenia, Sergey Khachatryan won First Prize at the VIII International Jean Sibelius Competition in Helsinki in 2000, becoming the youngest ever winner in the history of the competition. In 2005 he claimed First Prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels.
Highlights of this season include Sergey’s residency at the BOZAR, Brussels which includes a pair of recitals and concert with Orchestre National de Belgique and Hugh Wolff. He also performs with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra with Stanislav Kochanovsky, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana and Gulbenkian Orchestra with Lorenzo Viotti, Bamberger Symphoniker with Ludovic Morlot and Rotterdam Philharmonic with Valery Gergiev, as well as at the Teatro alla Scala Milan under Myung-Whun Chung. Sergey also embarks on a tour of the US and Europe with Alisa Weilerstein and Inon Barnaton with a programme titled ‘Transfigured Nights’ featuring the music of Beethoven, Schoenberg and Shostakovich.
Last season saw Sergey’s debuts at the Aspen Festival in Colorado, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg with the Hamburger Symphoniker and at the Salzburger Festspiele performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Re-invitations included the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Pietari Inkinen, Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rotterdam and Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestras, St Petersburg Philharmonic with Yuri Temirkanov, and the Cleveland Orchestra under Jakub Hrusa . Other recent projects include a tour of Japan with the Nippon Foundation and in 2014/15, Sergey performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto at the Lucerne Festival with the Vienna Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel as the latest recipient of the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award
In recent seasons, Sergey has performed with the Bamberger Symphoniker (Herbert Blomstedt and Jonathan Nott), Munich Philharmonic (James Gaffigan), Swedish Radio Symphony (Valcuha), Mariinsky Orchestra (Valery Gergiev) and Orchestre de Paris (Andris Nelsons and Gianandrea Noseda). He has also collaborated with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic,Orchestre National de France, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Sydney Symphony and Melbourne Symphony.
Sergey’s most recent appearances in the US were with the Seattle Symphony (Ludovic Morlot) and National Symphony Orchestra (Washington) (Vasily Petrenko). He has also visited the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony as well as the Ravinia, Blossom and Mostly Mozart Festivals
This 15/16 season began with Sergey at the Masion de la Radio France performing under the baton of Daniele Gatti with the Orchestre National de France. He also collaborated with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Valencia Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestra della Toscana, and the Orchestre de Paris with whom he played Brahms’ Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with Narek Hakhnazaryan. Further highlights were projects with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Sudwestrundfunk Sinfonieorchester, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.
Sergey and Lusine are regular duo partners. Together, they have given recitals at Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Theatre des Champs Elysees and Cite de la Musique (Paris), Auditori Nacional Madrid, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Palais des Beaux Arts (Brussels), Philharmonie Luxembourg, Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall (New York) and Herbst Theater (San Francisco). Their most recent project is Brahms’ three Sonatas for Violin and Piano, both on stage and on recording.
The Brahms CD was released in June 2013 on Naïve Classique. Sergey’s discography on the label also includes the Sibelius and Khachaturian concerti with Sinfonia Varsovia and Emmanuel Krivine, both Shostakovich concerti with the Orchestre National de France and Kurt Masur, a recording of the Shostakovich and Franck sonatas for violin and piano and the complete Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin by J.S. Bach.
In 2015 Sergey and Lusine released the album ‘My Armenia’, a disc of Armenian music from Komitas till Mirzoyan, which is dedicated to the 100th Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.
Sergey plays the 1740 ‘Ysaÿe’ Guarneri del Gesu violin on kind loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.