NAREK HAKHNAZARYAN, cello • GEORGY TCHAIDZE, piano
Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as ‘nothing short of magnificent’ and by the Los Angeles Times as a cellist ‘whose command of the instrument is extraordinary’, Armenian-born Narek Hakhnazaryan is one of the most exceptional musical talents to have emerged in recent decades. Since shooting to international fame on winning the Cello First Prize and Gold Medal at the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2011, he has established himself as a true virtuoso with an innate musicality and an exceptional talent for connecting with his audience.
Mentored earlier by the legendary Mstislav Rostropovich, Hakhnazaryan has enjoyed a truly global career since his triumph in the Tchaikovsky Competition and has played with orchestras such as the Orchestre de Paris, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio, Berlin Konzerthaus, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Finnish Radio, Helsinki Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and worked with conductors of the stature of Marin Alsop, Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Jurowski, Tom Koopman, Tugan Sokhiev, Manfred Honeck, and Gianandrea Noseda among others. He made a sensational debut at the BBC Proms in 2016 and the following year was invited by the Vienna Konzerthaus to be a ‘Great Talent’ in residence. Since then, he performed there regularly in recital, chamber music and with orchestra, most notably with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Jakub Hrůša (the Music Director-elect of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden).
Recent recital tours have included concerts in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Boston’s and Jordan Hall, as well as regular appearances at the Vienna Konzerthaus. He has recently released two albums of chamber music for Deutsche Grammophon. Narek Hakhnazaryan is a Larsen Strings Artist. He can be heard in the YouTube film, below, in Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations, with the Orchestre National du Capitole du Toulouse, conducted by Tugan Sokhiev.
‘Fine sensibility and perfectly honed technique’ wrote the Telegraph’s critic of Georgy Tchaidze’s London debut. Since winning the First Prize in 2009 at the triennial Honens International Piano Competition, one of North America’s most prestigious competitions, Tchaidze has performed throughout Europe, North America, and Asia to great acclaim, including debuts at Berlin’s Konzerthaus, the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, and at Carnegie Hall in New York. In 2015, Georgy Tchaidze was awarded First Prize at the Top of the World International Piano Competition in Tromsø, Norway, and received further international notice when he was asked to stand in for the indisposed Sir Andras Schiff. Since 2016, he has been Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, a centre for outstanding young musicians based in Waterloo, Belgium, under the direction of Louis Lortie.
As a chamber musician, Tchaidze has performed with the Brentano, Cecilia, and Borodin Quartets and with fellow pianists Piotr Anderszewski, Stephen Kovacevich, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Marc-André Hamelin, Nikolai Lugansky, among others.
Born in 1988 in St Petersburg, Georgy Tchaidze was educated at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory and at the Berlin University of the Arts. He records for the Honens label.