Sona Shaboyan

Pianist with Armenian roots Sona Shaboyan started playing the piano at age six. Born in Yerevan (Armenia), she was a student of professor Amalia Baiburtianat the renowned P.I. Tschaikovsky music school. After she had won the national piano competition in 1989, she received numerous concert engagements. At the same time, Sona continued her musical education at the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory. Her interest in music, painting and art history led Sona to Switzerland in 1992 where she worked as a pianist and music lecturer. She then went on to study piano with James Avery and Michel Béroff at the College of Music in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. As a scholarship holder of the Rosenberg Foundation, the Armenian General Benevolent Union and the Gulbenkian Foundation she completed master classes with Vitalij Margulis, Ludmilla Ginzburg, Andràs Schiff and John Perry. From 2001 to 2003 she took Homero Francesch’s soloist class at the Zurich Conservatory. This was followed by an intense musical collaboration with professor Svetlana Navasardya (Yerevan and Paris) and professor Vitalij Berson (Freiburg im Breisgau) that continues up to this day. In addition to solo recitals, Sona Shaboyan regularly gives concerts with orchestras and chamber music partners in Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Belgium, France, Scotland, Germany and Switzerland. In 2005, she received international recognition with her CD Piano Music from Armenia (Oehms Classics). With this recording she introduced unknown compositions by Komitas, Katchaturian, Andeasian, Arutiunina, Babajanyan and Mirsoian to a wide western audience. In 2008, a CD with works by Frédéric Chopin (12 études Op.10, Sonata No.2 Op.35 in B-flat minor) was released, again with Oehms Classics. Internationally renowned music critic Peter Cossé wrote, “This is a recording, an interpretational message, that secures a good spot in the vast LP and CD catalogue - at a safe distance from many a historical attempt (Brailowsky, Perlemuter).”