Biography
Ruben Gazarian is the General Music Director of the Theater Altenburg Gera since the 2020/2021 season. After four successful seasons, his contract has been extended for a further three years – until summer 2027.
Gazarian is also the designated Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Israel Chamber Orchestra, starting his tenure in Israel in September 2024. Ruben Gazarian’s work in Tel Aviv will run parallel to his GMD position in Germany. Before that, he was for sixteen years – from 2002 to 2018 – the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the renowned Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn. In more than 860 concerts and 26 CD productions, he enriched the standard repertory of the orchestra by regularly expanding it to symphonic dimensions. In recognition of his achievements during the long Heilbronn tenure, he was awarded the Golden Coin of the city in 2018.Parallel to his position in Heilbronn, at the beginning of 2015 Ruben Gazarian became principal conductor and artistic director of the Georgian Chamber Orchestra Ingolstadt. His Ingolstadt tenure ended after six seasons in December 2020.
As guest conductor Ruben Gazarian has directed such renowned orchestras as Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, WDR-Sinfonieorchester Köln, hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Kassel State Theater Orchestra, Deutsches-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Frankfurt Museum Orchestra (Frankfurt Opera Orchestra), Hessian State Orchestra Wiesbaden, Northwest German Philharmonic Herford, Orchestre National de Lyon, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Haifa Symphony Orchestra, Tel Aviv Opera Orchestra (Rishon LeZion Orchestra), Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, Zurich Chamber Orchestra and many others.
All German radio stations as well as Radio Svizzera Italiana, Radio France Musique, Radio Denmark (DR, Danmarks Radio) and several other European stations have recorded numerous of his concerts with various orchestras.
Gazarian works successfully with acclaimed musicians such as Khatia Buniatishvili, Gautier and Renaud Capuçon, Julia Fischer, Hilary Hahn, Katia & Marielle Labèque, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Sabine Meyer, Viktoria Mullova, Sergey Nakariakov, Gerhard Oppitz, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Julian Rachlin, Frank Peter Zimmermann, the Beaux Arts Trio, the Gewandhaus-Quartet and several others.The vast discography documents the extent of Gazarians repertoire and the quality of his interpretations, born of meticulous rehearsal work, profound emotional understanding and firm mastery over a broad range of periods and styles.