Nareh Arghamanyan
pianist

Biography

Nareh Arghamanyan, winner of the 2008 Montreal International Music Competition, makes her New York debut in the fall of 2009 at the Frick Collection in New York City.  Other appearances in the 2009-10 season include recitals in San Francisco, Miami, Detroit, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Kalamazoo, San Juan and Fresno, among others.  She also performs the Saint-Saëns 5th Concerto with the Winnipeg Symphony, the Saint-Saëns 2nd and Mozart Double Concertos with I Musici de Montreal, and the “Emperor” Concerto with the McGill Chamber Orchestra.  This past summer, Ms. Arghmanyan attended the prestigious Marlboro Festival and gave recitals in Quebec at Domaine Forget, the Festival International de Lanaudière in Joliet, Canada, and at the Mecklenburg Festival in Germany.  Most recently, the Analekta label released her recording of the Rachmaninoff 2nd Sonata and Liszt B minor Sonata to great acclaim.  La Scena Musicale wrote: “Arghamanyan meets the daunting demands of these two ultra-Romantic pieces with a combination of technical bravura, singing tone, and poetic expression……the Liszt is particularly memorable.”

In addition to capturing the First Prize in Montreal, she also received the Audience Choice Award and a special award for the best interpretation of a work by Canadian composer Alexina Louie. Ms. Arghamanyan has been the First Prize recipient at the 2007 Piano Campus International Competition in Pontoise, France, and took second prize at the 2007 Jose Roca International Competition in Valencia, Spain. In 2005 she won the Josef Dichler Piano Competition in Vienna, and the following year was awarded a scholarship from the Herbert von Karajan Foundation.  Nareh Arghamanyan’s first major recognition came at the coveted Gina Bachauer International Junior Piano Competition in Salt Lake City in 2000 where, at the age of 11, she was the Second Prize winner.
Previously, she had been the recipient of the First Prize at the 1997 International Chopin Piano Competition in Yugoslavia, First Prize at the 1998 International Competition for Young Talents in Ukraine, and Gold Medal winner at the 1999 Armenian Legacy National Piano Competition in the juniors’ category.

Ms. Arghamanyan has appeared at many festivals internationally including the Colmar Festival in France at the invitation of violinist Vladimir Spivakov, and a recital at Palais d’Athenée in Geneva, Switzerland.  In 2006 she appeared on the Chamber Music San Francisco Music Series under the auspices of the Guzik Foundation, and in 2004 was soloist with the Mont Blanc Symphony (France) in the Grieg Piano Concerto.  She has performed recitals in many U.S. cities including Los Angeles, Boston, and Washington, DC, and has appeared with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Armenian Philharmonic, and the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia.

Born in 1989 in Armenia, Nareh Arghamanyan began her piano studies at the age of five. Three years later, she entered the Tchaikovsky Music School for Talented Children in Yerevan, where she studied with Alexander Gurgenov.  In 2004 she was the youngest student to be admitted to the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where she studied with Heinz Medjimorec and graduated in 2008 with highest honors.