Raffi Kharajanyan
Raffi Kharajanyan is a Latvian pianist of Armenian origin, as well as a musicologist and music teacher. He was born on February 27, 1944, in Yerevan. He is the son of the conductor Ispir Kharajanyan, an Honored Artist of the Armenian SSR. From 1951 to 1962 he studied in the piano department of the P. I. Tchaikovsky Yerevan Secondary Specialized Music School.
He graduated with distinction from the Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Leningrad State Conservatory in 1968, where he studied with Pavel Serebryakov, and completed an assistant internship there in 1971. He also completed postgraduate study in the department of the history and theory of performing art in 1973 under the supervision of Professor Lev Barenboim. In 1974 he defended his dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Art History, and in 1994 he received the degree of Doctor of Art History.
Since 1970 Kharajanyan has lived and worked in Riga. From the same year he taught at the Jazeps Vitols Latvian State Conservatory, and from 2002 he served as professor of the special piano department. He has taken part in and chaired juries of international piano competitions in cities including Tokyo, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Novgorod, Kostomuksha, Yerevan, Gyumri, Kaunas, Klaipeda, Visaginas, Riga, Daugavpils, and Marupe. Among his students are prizewinners of international piano competitions, including Reinis Zarins, Ruslan Perezhilo, and Gleb Belyayev. He has also given master classes in various countries.
He is especially known for his performances in the Riga Piano Duo with the Latvian pianist Nora Novik, a partnership that lasted from 1968 until her death in 2009. He later continued concert activity with his own graduates, including Reinis Zarins, Ruslan Perezhilo, Gleb Belyayev, Inese Bushmane, Elena Lykhvar, and also with Professor Armine Grigoryan. He has appeared at many international festivals, particularly those devoted to piano duos, and in composers' author concerts featuring music by Edison Denisov, Alexander Arutiunian, Sergey Balasanyan, Marger Zarins, Valery Gavrilin, Osvaldas Balakauskas, Vytautas Barkauskas, Otar Taktakishvili, Janis Ivanovs, Raimo Kangro, and Jaan Raats. He has toured widely, including visits to the United States in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014, and has performed with conductors such as Kirill Kondrashin, Arvid Jansons, Saulius Sondeckis, Vladimir Sinai, Vassily Sinaisky, Loris Tjeknavorian, and David Khanjyan.
Together with Nora Novik, Kharajanyan recorded a number of albums in different countries, with a repertoire dominated by works of contemporary composers, among them Valery Gavrilin, Peteris Vasks, Jaan Raats, Marger Zarins, Raimo Kangro, and Egils Straume. In July 2012 the Riga Piano Duo received a special prize at the International Festival in San Francisco for its outstanding artistic contribution to the piano duo genre.
Kharajanyan is also the author of the book The Piano Works of Aram Khachaturian (Yerevan, 1973), as well as many articles in various languages on performance practice, contemporary composition, and ethnoculture. He has also written compositions and arrangements for two pianos, some of which have been published and recorded on CD, including works connected with Aram Khachaturian, Rodion Shchedrin, and Janis Ivanovs. He became an Honored Artist of the Latvian SSR in 1982, was awarded Latvian citizenship for special merits in 1995, and was made a Knight of the Order of the Three Stars in 2002. In 2024 he received the Medal of Gratitude of Armenia.