The meditative focus and rare stillness of Armenian-American pianist Sergei Babayan’s keyboard artistry prompted the Hamburger Abendblatt to liken him to “one of those Japanese calligraphers who contemplate the white page before them in silence until, at the exact right moment, their brush makes its instinctive, perfect sweep across the paper”. His thoughtful musicianship has grown over decades of painstaking musical explorations, and during the course of his career he has built a broad and deep repertoire encompassing well over sixty concertos and other works by composers from Bach, Beethoven and Ligeti to Prokofiev, Pärt, Rameau and Ryabov.
Born into a musical family in Armenia, Sergei Babayan received his first piano lessons from Luiza Markaryan, then was taught by Georgy Saradjev. Babayan subsequently studied with Lev Naumov, Vera Gornostayeva and Mikhail Pletnev at the Moscow Conservatory.
Babayan made his breakthrough in 1989 with a consecutive series of competition victories, generating headlines by winning the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition and the Scottish International Piano Competition. He joined the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1992 as artist-in-residence. In high demand ever since, he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Théâtre des Champs-Elyseés, Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie, the Salzburg and Verbier festivals. In November 2019 Sergei Babayan was Curating Artist at Konzerthaus Dortmund.
