Sergei Babayan, Armenia, 1st Prize, 1989

Sergei Babayan was born in Guimri, Armenia, and began his musical studies at age six with Luisa Markaryan, and later George Saradjev. His numerous teachers have included Lev Naumov, and at the Moscow Conservatory, Michel Pletnev and Vera Gornostaeva.

After winning the Cleveland Competition he won First Prize in The Palm Beach International Piano Competition (1990), First Prize in the 1991 International Hamamatsu Competition (Japan), was a Laureate of the Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition, won First Prize (and all three special performance awards,) in the 1992 Scottish International Piano Competition, third prize at the Busoni International Piano Competition in Italy, and was a prize winner at the inaugural Esther Honens International Piano Competition in Canada..

After making his New York recital debut in 1990 at Alice Tully Hall to critical acclaim, Mr. Babayan embarked on a schedule that has included solo appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Osaka Symphony, the National Orchestra of Belgium, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Slovenska Filharmonia of Bratislava, the Brno Philharmonic, the Bergamo Symphony of Italy, the Florida Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony, New World Symphony, and Orchestre National de Lille, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at the Meadow Brook Festival under Neeme Järvi.

His recital appearances have included the cities of New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Indianapolis, Sarasota, Toledo, Santa Fe, Fresno, Birmingham, San Juan, Calgary and Toronto. In Japan he has performed in the cities of Tokyo, Osaka, Sapporo and Nagoya; in Europe, he has appeared in recital in Glasgow, Lisbon, Freiburg, Grenoble, Hannover and Paris.

Festival appearances have included the Mayfest in Glasgow, the Duszniki Chopin Festival in Poland, and the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, the Lucena Festival in Spain, and the Orford Festival in Canada. Mr. Babayan has also been heard in concert on WQXR in New York, WCLV in Cleveland, and on Radio France, Polish Radio and TV, and BBC-TV.

His CD recording of 20th century works by Vine, Messiaen, Ligeti, and Respighi was released recently on the ProPiano label and a recording of Scarlatti Sonatas (ProPiano) have been widely acclaimed. These CDs join Mr. Babayan's other releases: works of Mendelssohn and Schubert-Liszt (Discover International), and a Ravel, Prokofiev and Liszt recital (Connoisseur Society label).