Svetlana Navasardyan is a Soviet and Armenian pianist and music teacher, born on 29 October 1946 in Alaverdi, Armenian SSR. She was awarded the title People's Artist of the Armenian SSR in 1984, received the State Prize of the Armenian SSR in 1988, and became professor at the Komitas Yerevan State Conservatory in 1989. Critics and musicologists have noted in her playing an epic interpretive breadth, large-scale conception, dramatic intensity, strong-willed purposefulness, depth of interpretation, artistry, and a combination of lyricism and power.
She was born into a family of teachers: her father Hovhannes Navasardyan was a historian and her mother Granush Petrosyan was a mathematician who was also a professionally trained singer with a lyric-dramatic soprano voice. Navasardyan later recalled that her mother's singing became her first musical education. She began studying piano at the age of five at the Romanos Melikian music school in Alaverdi, and at nine gave her first solo recital, performing the complete cycle of Bach's 30 two- and three-part inventions. At the age of twelve her family moved to Yerevan, where she continued her musical education at the Sayat-Nova music school and then at the Romanos Melikian music college in the piano class of Vache Umr-Shat.
Her debut with orchestra took place at the age of fourteen, when she performed the second movement of Aram Khachaturian's Piano Concerto after learning it in only two days. In 1964 she entered the Komitas Yerevan State Conservatory, again studying with Vache Umr-Shat. During her student years she began her successful competition career, winning the Transcaucasian Competition of Performing Musicians in Tbilisi in 1965, becoming a laureate of the Robert Schumann International Piano Competition in Zwickau in 1966, and of the J. S. Bach International Piano Competition in Leipzig in 1968. From 1966 she was a soloist of the Armenian State Philharmonic.
After graduating from the Yerevan Conservatory in 1968, Navasardyan entered the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she studied with Yakov Zak, a representative of the Heinrich Neuhaus school. She graduated with distinction in 1971, then completed postgraduate studies there in 1973. In 1972 she became a prize-winner at the Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition in Brussels. The same year she became a soloist of Goskontsert of the USSR, and from 1972 to 1974 served as an assistant at the Moscow Conservatory.
In 1974 she returned to Yerevan and began teaching at the Komitas Yerevan State Conservatory, later becoming docent in 1981 and professor in 1989. In 1977 she was awarded a prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition. From 1967 onward she toured in more than forty countries, appearing in major venues such as the Sydney Opera House, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Salle Gaveau in Paris, the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. She collaborated with the State Philharmonic Orchestra of Armenia and many other orchestras and chamber ensembles, and also gave master classes and served as a guest professor at institutions in Damascus, Montreal, Japan, Strasbourg, Weimar, Moscow, and elsewhere.
Navasardyan's repertoire includes more than 360 works ranging from the Baroque era to contemporary classical music. It encompasses all piano concertos of J. S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Chopin, as well as concertos by Haydn, Schumann, Arensky, Glazunov, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Bartok, and Khachaturian, among many others. She is one of the few pianists to have performed the complete cycles of Bach's 13 keyboard concertos and Mozart's 27 piano concertos. In 1985 she performed Bach's 13 concertos over three evenings, and for this achievement she received the State Prize of the Armenian SSR in 1988. She has also attached great importance to performing works by contemporary Armenian composers.
In the winter of 1989 in Yerevan, Navasardyan appeared for the first time not only as a pianist but also as a conductor, leading the Armenian State Chamber Orchestra in works by Haydn, Samuel Barber, and Schubert. International critics described her as a great Armenian pianist, a piano volcano, an indisputable individuality, and a symbol of resistance to everything routine and predictable in modern pianism. Her artistry was highly praised by musicians including Emil Gilels and Sviatoslav Richter. Musicologists have emphasized her flawless technique, concentration, objectivity toward musical material, and epic cast of interpretation, even in Romantic repertoire.
Among her distinctions are the titles Honored Artist of the Armenian SSR and People's Artist of the Armenian SSR, the Order of St. Mesrop Mashtots, the Order of Honor, the Order of the Badge of Honor, the medal of Movses Khorenatsi, and the order of the Armenian Apostolic Church Saints Sahak and Mesrop. She was also named an honorary citizen of Yerevan in 2021. Navasardyan currently lives in Yerevan and Paris and continues her active concert and teaching career, touring and giving master classes abroad.