Ambartsumian, Levon
Born in Moscow in 1955, Levon Ambartsumian began to study violin at the age of three. He then enrolled in and graduated from the Central Music School. Five years later, Ambartsumian graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with a special Artist Diploma, where his teachers wre Felix Andrievski, Yury Yankelevitch, Leonid Kogan and Igor Bezrodny. In 1977 he became the First Prize winner of Zagreb International Violin Competition headed by Henryk Szeryng. Two years later he was a prize winner of the Montreal International Competition, and in 1981 he won the All-Union Violin Competition in Riga. Levon Ambartsumian was distinguished as Honored Artist of Armenia and 1988 and Honored Artist of Russia in 1997. Since 1977 Ambartsumian has performed regularly in all the main cities of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He appeared as a soloist and recorded for radio and television with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, Kirov Opera, the Philharmonic orchestras of Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia and Peking among others. Since 1988 he performed in the USA, Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Greece, Spain and South Korea. In 1989 Ambartsumian founded the Moscow Chamber Orchestra “ARCO” which regularaly performed in Russia and now resides in Athens, Georgia, USA. The repertoire of Mr. Ambartsumian included the major violin pieces: concertos by Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Bartok; sonatas by Bach, Schubert, Brahms, Franck, Prokofiev, Bartok, and Schnittke; concert pieces by Wieniawski, Saint-Saens, Sarasate and Tchaikovsky. He devotes himself to contemporary Russian music and has made several important world premiers. Since 1978 Amabartsumian has taught at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He also taught as Visiting Professor at Indiana University School of Music (Bloomington, Indiana). In 1995, Ambartsumian accepted the position of Franklin Professor of Violin at the University of Georgia School of Music (Athens, Georgia).
