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The Armenian-born American pianist, music pedagogue, producer and researcher, Mariam Nazarian, was born into a family of musicians, who nurtured and shaped her early years as a musician. She began demonstrating prodigious musical abilities at an early age, and at the age of 6 started formal studies in piano performance under Zaven Parsamyan at the Tchaikovsky School of Music for gifted children in Yerevan, Armenia. She made her debut at the age of 8 with the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia, and also performed with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra at the Grand Philharmonic Hall, St. Petersburg, Russia. She moved to the USA in 1996, Nazarian grew up in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey, continued her studies with Parsamyan at the St. John International School of the Arts in Maryville, Tennessee, and studied with Alexander Fiorillo at Temple University in Philadelphia until 1999. She graduated cum laude from the Mannes College of Music in New York City, completing her studies in three years (2002-2005); she holds a Master of Arts degree in performance practice from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (2005-2009). Her many awards include the Grand Prize of the Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra's Young Artist Competition.
Mariam Nazarian made her USA debut, in 1995, at the age of 11, with solo recitals in Washington, D.C., New York, Princeton, and Philadelphia, with subsequent appearances at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto and the Ontario Music Festival in Ottawa, Canada. On October 21, 1999, at the age of 16, she made her Carnegie Hall debut as the youngest pianist in Carnegie’s history to have performed J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations BWV 988. In May 1999, she recorded her debut CD of the Goldberg Variations (BWV 988), on a Steinway (like Murray Perahia) at SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center. The album was released under the label of Ardani Classics and later re-released on Mariam Nazarian own label (December 2023).
Mariam Nazarian has performed as a recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with orchestras including the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart (at Richardson Auditorium, Princeton), Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (at Pennsylvania Convention Centre, Philadelphia), Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and Boston Pops (at Symphony Hall, Boston), and in other venues including Lincoln Center / Alice Tully Hall (New York), the Glenn Gould Studio (Toronto), as well as in Spain, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. Her performances have been broadcast live on radio and television, including on WRTI-FM in Philadelphia, WWFM and WPRB-FM in Princeton, WQXR-FM and the MetroGuide TV Channel in New York. She has received international press recognition, including in the Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, Teen People Magazine, and “D” La Repubblica, among others.
Mariam Nazarian's holistic approach to performance, research, production, and pedagogy, has brought about innovative projects in collaboration with Princeton University's 3D3A Lab and the Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle; the Leipzig Bach-Archiv; as well as numerous benefit concerts – produced on behalf of The Scheide Fund (Princeton) and Nazarian Music & Media – that have featured the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists under the direction of Sir John Eliot Gardiner; the Wiener Kammerorchester, Zürcher Kammerorchester, and English Chamber Orchestra; Festival Strings Lucerne; Bach-Collegium Stuttgart; and the Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others.
Mariam Nazarian has also co-produced guest speaker appearances with Harvard University's Office for the Arts and has served as programming advisor to the Arts Council of Princeton. In addition to her activities as performer, she is an accomplished concert producer, having produced sold-out performances by such world-renowned ensembles as the Zürcher Kammerorchester, Wiener Kammerorchester, Festival Strings Lucerne, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, and others.
Mariam Nazarian is a frequent contributor to documentary and narrative feature film projects including Philip Kaufman's Meshugah, Edoardo Ponti's Crescendo, while coaching actors like Elijah Wood in Grand Piano to enable successful outcomes in on-screen musical performances. She obtained her Master of Philosophy degree from Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge (2018-2019), where she founded Clare Hall Piano Workshop. She is part of the distinguished roster of Bösendorfer Artists since 2002. |
