Ruben Gazarian

Armenian conductor Ruben Gazarian is the music director and principal conductor of the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn. At four years old he began studying music with his father, who gave him violin lessons. He attended the Tchaikovsky Music School in Yerevan, the Komitas State Conservatory, and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Leipzig, graduating in 1998. Gazarian played with the State Chamber Orchestra of Armenia and the piano trio of Armenian State Radio and Television, until he became the concertmaster of the Westsächsisches Symphonieorchester (Symphony Orchestra of West Saxony) in 1992, and principal conductor in 1999. Gazarian was named the winner of the Sir Georg Solti International Conductors' Competition in Frankfurt am Main in 2002, and he started his tenure as the principal conductor and musical director of the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn. He has conducted many major orchestras, including the Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, the WDR Symphony Orchestra Köln, hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Frankfurter Museumsorchester, the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Orchestra Rishon LeZion, the Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Staatsorchester Kassel, and the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, among many others. Gazarian has collaborated with many of the world's leading soloists, including Julia Fischer, Hilary Hahn, Gautier Capuçon, Renaud Capuçon, Sabine Meyer, Viktoria Mullova, Gerhard Oppitz, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Katia and Marielle Labèque, and Alice Sara Ott. In 2015, Gazarian was named the artistic director of the Georgian Chamber Orchestra Ingolstadt, and his contract was renewed in 2017. He has recorded for Bayer Records, Coviello Classics, NEOS, Challenge Classics, Berlin Classics, and Decca.