Mikayel Balyan

Mikayel Balyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1981. He received his first piano lessons at the age of five. From 1993 to 1998 he studied at the Gnessins Conservatory in Moscow and pursued further study on the piano from 1998 to 2004 with Rudolf Buchbinder at the Musikhochschule Basel, where he received a Piano Performance degree (Konzertdiplom) with highest honors.
In 2005 he began studying harpsichord at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen with Carsten Lohff and is currently studying Music Theory with Volkhardt Preuss and harpsichord with Menno van Delft at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.
Mikayel Balyan works with many different conductors, including Howard Griffiths and the Zürcher Kammerorchester and has appeared as soloist and chamber music partner in concerts at many venues within Europe and South America. In May of 2007 he won First Prize in the “Early Music Ensemble” category of the German Music Conservatory Competition in Stuttgart.
Mikayel Balyan collaborates closely with violinist Raphael Oleg in duo recitals.