Khachatur Khachatryan
Khachatur Khachatryan is an Armenian born Romanian composer and cellist based in Singapore. At the age of eight Khachatur began playing cello, and was destined to become a concert cellist. Since 1993 he has been award recipient of prestigious music institutions such as the New Names, Aram Khachaturian Foundation and the Vladimir Spivakov Foundation. In 1998, at the age of 13 he received a special prize in the Adult Section of the International Music competition "Virtuoses of XXI Century" in Moscow. Between 2002 and 2007 he studied at the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory under the well-known cellist Aram Talalyan. From 2007 to 2009 he studied at the Graduate School of the Yerevan Conservatory, pursuing a master’s degree under the guidance of leading Armenian cellist Medea Abraha myan, who was the first student of the legendary Mstislav Rostropovich. He also was a regular participant in music festivals in Armenia, Russia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Romania, with a performing repertoire that included sonatas by Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich. Khachatur considers the cycle of Bach's six suites for solo cello his specialty and often plays them in one sitting.
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Khachatur composes professionally symphonic works, chamber music and orchestral arrangements. One of his more accomplished works is the arrangement for orchestra of Rachmaninoff's Preludes, Ravel’s “Gaspard de la nuit”. Fro m 2014 till 2016 he worked as consultant and guest principal cello at the Harbin Symphony Orchestra. The position opened doors for Khachatur to become actively involved in the Chinese and Asia music scene and life. Since moving to Singapore in 2016 his doing various cello recitals, including successful performance of Complete Solo Cello Suites by J.S Bach at the Singapore’s Art House on 1 October 2017 which was described as “the 160-minute-long concert proved an unqualified triumph” (The Straits Times, Singapore).
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His recent orchestral arrangement of Ravel “Le Gibet” (from “Gaspard de la nuit”) was played by Singapore Symphony Orchestra during a Composition Workshop with Tim Davies in Feb 2020.
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Khachatur is a prize winner at Schubert International Composition Competition in 2021, Vienna, Austria.