VC Artist Emmanuel Tjeknavorian Named Music Director of Milan Symphony Orchestra

A renowned violinist, Tjeknavorian shifted his focus to the podium at the beginning of the 2022/23 season

The 28-year-old violinist, conductor, and VC Artist Emmanuel Tjeknavorian has recently been named as the new Music Director of the Milan Symphony Orchestra (MSO). The orchestra is yet to announce how long Tjeknavorian's initial term will be.

A graduate of the Vienna University of Music, where he studied the violin with Professor Gerhard Schulz, Tjeknavorian is a former major prize winner at the Brahms, Goldberg, Kreisler, and Sibelius International Violin Competitions.

As a soloist, he has appeared with the Gewandhausorchester, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, London Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich, and the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, among others.

As a conductor, he has led the Filarmonica della Scala, the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the Gürzenich Orchester Cologne, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, and Madrid’s Orquesta Sinfónica de RTVE.

In the 22/23 season, Tjeknavorian conducted a celebrated semi-staged production of Die Fledermaus in the Musikverein Graz with Vienna’s ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra, as well as Beethoven’s C Major Mass with the Wiener Kammerorchester and the Wiener Singakademie in Vienna’s famed Konzerthaus.

"A child of art, at just 28, Tjeknavorian already has an impressive biography, also as a violinist," wrote the Armenian Embassy in Italy in a statement. "Last year he opened the season of the Philharmonic Orchestra at La Scala with Riccardo Chailly."