Armenian virtuoso Haik Kazazyan has been crowned winner of the inaugural Classic Violin Olympus in Dubai.
Kazazyan triumphed after a gruelling six rounds at Dubai’s Jumeirah Zabeel Saray, scooping €200,000 in cash and a Stradivari-model violin handcrafted by renowned Italian luthier Fabio Piagentini.
The 42-year-old played his way to the title with stirring renditions of Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Beethoven and Alexey Shor, impressing judges with his unusual encore piece, inspired by a recording of Frank Peter Zimmermann he found on YouTube.
“When I heard my name, I said to myself: ‘This can be not possible’,” says Kazazyan. “It was a shocking moment, and I didn’t understand if it was dream or reality.
“I tried my best. I really went inside the music, and I really love this Alexey Shor Concerto. I believe the jury could feel that emotion.”
Over the past seven days, 12 violinists from around the world performed at the hotel’s Zabeel Theatre for the final of the competition, which held preliminary rounds in Rome, Vienna, London, New York, Tokyo and Dubai.
Each violinist performed alongside the Madrid Philharmonic Orchestra and the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, interpreted a piece by a contemporary composer and participated in an interview with the jury – with Kazazyan wowing the 23-member panel of renowned conductors, composers and musicians.
All 12 musicians also performed a piece by Alexey Shor, for which Kazazyan also scooped a special prize, earning an extra €10,000 for his performance of Violin Concerto No. 4 in B minor.
However, with accolade comes responsibility, and Kazazyan now faces the task of living up to his new title.
“I’m very happy but I also feel responsible, first of all to prove myself to my colleagues in the competition that I really deserve this prize and also on my future career,” he says. “I still want to develop my playing and my music.”
All of the remaining finalists were awarded €10,000 for their achievement and were invited by various jury members to perform with orchestras around the world, with Kazazyan accepting invitations to perform in China and Spain.
For the Yerevan-born musician, who began playing the violin at age seven, this victory marks the culmination of 35 years of dedication.
“When I was a kid, I was really inspired by Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and then by Niccolò Paganini – and from then on I wanted to play violin,” he says. “My father was also a really big music lover and we had a big collection of classical music recordings in our home, and especially a lot of violin recordings, and these violin recordings were outstanding.
“We listened to Isaac Stern, David Oistrakh, Leonid Kogan, Jascha Heifetz – and when I was hearing these recordings, I would dream of playing like that.”
Having also recently won the 2024 Rome Classic Violin Competition, Kazazyan offered some advice to young musicians aspiring to follow a similar path.
“I would advise all young musicians to listen to recordings of outstanding musicians and to be inspired,” he says. “This is what will keep them going because music is a very hard profession.”
Despite feeling confident throughout the competition, Kazazyan believes it was his unusual encore that ultimately set him apart.
“Several years ago, I heard a recording of Frank Peter Zimmermann on YouTube and it was really great,” he says. “I found the score, learned it and then I edited it a bit myself.
“When I entered this competition and had to choose an encore, I thought that this is the thing I need to choose. This will be really something special and interesting, especially for the jury – and I was correct.”
