Pianist Karine Poghosyan to Play St. Vartan Cathedral, 9/25

The vibrant young Armenian pianist Kariné Poghosyan will perform at St. Vartan Cathedral, 630 2nd Ave., New York City on Wednesday evening, September 25th, at 7:30 p.m., as part of the 2013-14 Concerts @ St.Vartan series. Ms. Poghosyan will also be leading the St. Vartan orchestra in their inaugural appearance. The program will include works by Schubert, Bach, and Liszt.

The complete program follows:

Schubert-Liszt: Ave Maria
Bach: Piano Concert No. 1 in D minor (with the St. Vartan Orchestra) Liszt: Sposalizio
Liszt: Dante Sonata

Tickets are $10, $5 for students and seniors, free for children under 12, and will be sold at the door on the day of the concert. Tickets can be reserved by calling 212-686-0710.

The exceptional Armenian pianist Kariné Poghosyan has been praised for her ability to get to the heart of the works she performs. She made her orchestral debut at 14 playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.1, and her solo Carnegie Hall debut at 23, and has since gone on to win numerous awards as well as perform in some of the world's most prestigious concert halls.

An avid musician who has been described as "extraordinary" and "larger than life," Kariné Poghosyan has performed in recitals at Carnegie's Well Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Steinway Hall, the Trinity Church Concerts at One series, the Beverly Hills Sundays at Two series, the Valley Committee for the LA Philharmonic, the Bach's Lunch Recital Series in California, the Young Artists International Peninsula Festival in California, and the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York. In the fall of 2007, she organized and performed a three-recital concert series at the Yamaha Piano Salon titled Twentieth Century Piano Sonata. Recently, she helped organize the "Requiem and Resurrection" concert in commemoration of the 95th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide at the Saint Vartan Armenian Cathedral in New York, where her performance of the Piano Sonata by Khachaturian received a standing ovation and was described as "jaw-dropping." The Armenian Mirror Spectator wrote, "The three-movement Khachaturian Sonata-a rarely performed composition-is a real tour-de-force for the virtuoso pianist. Technically pristine, Ms. Poghosyan brought out the driven qualities of the outer movements, and the heart-rending beauty of the middle section."

Ms. Poghosyan has appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras including the New West Symphony, Park Avenue Chamber Symphony Orchestra, Musica Bella Symphony Orchestra, the CSUN Symphony, and the Kokolo Ensemble, and the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra, whose music director Dr. Choe described Ms. Poghosyan as "an audience magnet" and "a born performer." She has participated in the master classes of distinguished artists such as Alicia de Larrocha, Claude Franck, Jon O'Connor, and Jerome Rose.

Ms. Poghosyan is the winner of the New West Symphony Discovery Artists Competition, the Thousand Islands International Piano Competition, CSUN Symphony Concerto Competition, the Artists International Auditions and was a top prize winner in the Los Angeles International Liszt Piano Competition, Five Towns Music and Arts Competition, and the Arno Babajanian Piano Competition. Ms. Poghosyan is also the recipient of scholarships from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Glendale Symphony Orchestra, the Armenian Students Association of America, AGBU, and the Jacob and Bronislaw Gimpel Foundation, and Manhattan School of Music.

Ms. Poghosyan's music studies began in her native Yerevan Armenia in School of the Arts, No. 1, and later in Romanos Melikian College as well as Komitas State Conservatory. Her teachers in Armenia included Irina Gazarian, Vatche Umr-Shat, and Svetlana Dadyan. After moving to the United States in 1998, she received her BM, summa cum laude, from California State University in Northridge, under Professor Françoise Regnat, and her MM and D.M.A. degrees at the Manhattan School of Music, under Dr. Arkady Aronov, completing her D.M.A. in record-breaking two years with thesis on Aram Khachaturian for Piano. Ms. Poghosyan is currently based in New York, where she teaches at her alma mater Manhattan School of Music.

Upcoming performances in 2013-14 include solo recitals at the University of Northridge and at the "Sundays at Two" series in Rolling Hills, CA, a solo and orchestral performance at the Saint Vartan Cathedral in New York in May as well as September, and solo recitals in Montgomery, NY, and Richmond, Virginia.

Ms. Poghosyan's solo CD of Aram Khachaturian's piano works and ballet transcriptions will be released in the summer of 2014, on NAXOS label.