„She is a master of tone variety and is truly excellent at fashioning singing phrases. She immerses herself completely in her playing and engenders the same energy in the audience.“
– Risto-Matti Marin, Maj Lind International Competition Helsinki, June 2007
Pianist Violetta Khachikyan is a versatile musician, who passionately performs as a recitalist, as a chamber music collaborator and as a soloist with orchestras.
Since her triumph at the Bremen International Piano Competition in 2009, where in addition to the first prize she was awarded three special prizes – the audience prize, the special prize for the best interpretation of a romantic composition and a special prize for the best performance of a commissioned work – Violetta’s career launched and her performances were heard on major concert venues in Europe, in addition to Japan and Brazil.
Praised as “a true artist” (Michel Moran) and complimented for her “beautiful tone and brilliant instrumental virtuosity” (Emanuel Krasovky), Violetta Khachikyan has performed with numerous symphony orchestras including the Saint-Petersburg State Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Bremer Philharmoniker, Volgograd Symphony Orchestra, Tambov Philharmonic and Krasnodar Symphonic Orchestra, and collaborated with conductors such as Segerstam, Titov, Loughran, Ziva, Kütson and Krumpöck. During the past two years she offered recitals at important music festivals such as Beethovenfest in Bonn, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Aarhus International Piano Festival and Brahms Festival in Lübeck.
In addition to the Bremen prize, Violetta is also a top prize winner of major international piano competitions, such as the 2007 Helsinki International Maj Lind Piano Competition, 2007 Scottish International Competition in Glasgow, 2009 George Enescu International Piano Competition in Bucharest, 2013 International Paderewski Piano Competition, among many others. In 2007 Violetta received an award from the Lions Club in Germany to record her first solo CD. Two years later, following the Bremen Competition, her next album was released by Radio Bremen. The CD includes Piano Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninov with Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Mihkel Kütson, as well as several piano solo works: Carnaval Op.9 by Robert Schumann, a selection of Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti and Euridique by W. Hiller. Violetta’s performances where also broadcasted by various radio stations, such as: Yle Fi (Finland), Radio 4 Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Radio Bremen (Germany), NDR Kultur (Hamburg, Germany), and Deutschlandradio Kultur.
Born to Armenian family in Krasnodar in the southern part of Russia, Violetta started her piano lessons under the guidance of her mother, who taught her for the following five years. At the age of twelve, the young pianist made her first solo debut with works by Bach, Beethoven, Schumann and Tchaikovsky in her native city in the main concert hall. Two years later Violetta enrolled at the Krasnodar College of Music, where as a student she joined the department of piano performance, as well as music theory and history department, and studied with Nelly Mezhlumova.
During her student years Violetta performed extensively, participated at numerous piano competitions, and was awarded the “Hope of Russia” Award, as one of the most promising young artists of her country.
In 2000 Violetta moved to Saint-Petersburg and entered the Rimsky-Korsakov Saint-Petersburg State Conservatory where she studied with Tatiana Zagorovskaya, Natalia Arzumanova, Eleonora Nuridzhanyan and Georgy Erzhemsky. The years at the conservatory were passionately dedicated to the Russian composers - Skryabin, Rachmaninov, Medtner, Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky, what motivated Violetta to give numerous thematic concerts, an interest that continues to the present days. Violetta’s range of interest encompasses broad spheres of musical art: she is fond of romantic composers, baroque music, twentieth-century and new music, as well as jazz and tango.
Violetta had also studied with influential and renowned piano pedagogues at numerous international music academies and master classes, such as Willem Brons, Leon Fleisher, Vladimir Tropp, Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Pavel Gililov, Dmitry Bashkirov and Paul Badura-Skoda. These inspiring encounters tremendously influenced Violetta’s artistic growth.
In 2015 Violetta graduated from the Lübeck Music Academy (Musikhochschule Lübeck) where she earned her “Konzertexamen” (Artist Diploma) and where she studied with Professor Konstanze Eickhorst. Currently Violetta Khachikyan teaches at the Academy of Music and Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Leipzig", Music Academy in Lübeck, and performs concerts in Germany and abroad.