Raffi Besalyan

Pianist Raffi Besalyan has established careers in the U.S. and internationally, performing in the grand Russian pianistic tradition. He is also a noted educator. Besalyan was born in the Armenian capital of Yerevan in 1972. He showed talent early and was enrolled at Yerevan's Tchaikovsky Special Music School for Gifted Children. Besalyan went on to the Yerevan State Musical Conservatory, where he received bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. Coming to the U.S., he earned a second master's degree from Rowan University in New Jersey and studied further at the Manhattan School of Music with Byron Janis and Sara Davis Buechner. Prizes at several competitions, including the MTNA National Competition, Josef Hoffmann International Piano Competition, and Frinna Awerbuch International Competition, launched Besalyan's solo career, and he made his solo debut at Carnegie Hall in 2003. Since then, Besalyan has divided his time between concertizing and teaching. After holding positions at Rowan University and at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point, he joined the faculty at Georgia State University in Atlanta, where he remains. Besalyan has also served as guest artist at the Takatsuki Music Teacher's Association of Osaka, Japan. He has appeared at such prestigious venues as Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Orchestra Hall in Chicago, and Rachmaninov Hall at the Moscow Conservatory. Besalyan has been especially popular in Japan, where he first toured in 2001 and has returned annually to concertize, give master classes, and serve as a judge in competitions. It was in Japan that Besalyan made his recording debut with the album Dance, Drama, Decadence on the IMC Music label in 2012. He moved to Sono Luminus in 2015 for the album The Return, featuring music by Rachmaninov and Armenian composers. He returned in 2021 with the recital The Sound of Black & White, programming Khachaturian, Gershwin, and Oscar Levant.
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