Mikayel Balyan

Mikayel Balyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1981. After attending his first music lessons in his hometown and later in Moscow, he studied the piano in Basel with Rudolf Buchbinder. He then continued his studies of the piano and fortepiano with Prof. Carsten Lohff in Bremen, while also studying clavichord and harpsichord with Prof. Menno van Delft and music theory with Prof. Volkhardt Preuß in Hamburg. In 2008, be began teaching historical keyboard instruments and thorough bass at the music universities in these two cities.

Mikayel Balyan has worked with numerous conductors and orchestras, including the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi, Howard Griffiths and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, and Simon Gaudenz and Collegium Musicum Basel. He has also appeared as a soloist and chamber musician at many venues in Europe and South America, as well as at various festivals, including Resonanzen Wien, Festival Radovljica, Internationale Barocktage Stift Melk, Fränkischer Sommer, Musikfest Bremen, Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht and Tage Alter Musik in Herne. 

He collaborates with French violinist Raphael Oleg and with Swiss flutist Felix Renggli, with whom he has recorded a CD featuring the works of Franz Schubert.

In 2012, together with his cello partner Davit Melkonyan, Mikayel Balyan was awarded the scholarship “Artist in Residence 2012”, sponsored by the Bremen Music Festival and the radio station Deutschlandfunk. This scholarship included two CD productions with Sony Classics/Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.

In 2012–2013, he studied historical improvisation at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Mikayel Balyan currently serves as a professor of the fortepiano at the Private University for Music and Art of the City of Vienna.