Pianist Natalia Kazaryan has built a multifaceted career as a performer, curator, educator, and artistic leader. A Fulbright Scholar and founder of Counterpoint Concerts in Washington, DC, she is known for bringing fresh perspectives to the classical concert experience through programs that combine classic works with contemporary music, technology, and immersive visual design.
Praised by The New York Sun for her “prodigious ability” and for creating “an atmosphere of strength and confidence,” Kazaryan has appeared as soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra, Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic, Harrisburg Symphony, Alexandria Symphony, and other ensembles. Her performance of Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement, conducted by James Ross, was featured on WETA Classical’s Front Row Washington. She has also appeared on major recital series including the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, Portland Piano International, and the Phillips Collection, with international appearances at venues including Salzburg’s Schloss Mirabell, Monaco’s Théâtre des Variétés, Madrid’s Auditorio Sony, Paris’s Salle Cortot and Musée Carnavalet, and the Palazzo Tornabuoni in Florence.
As founder and artistic director of Counterpoint Concerts, Kazaryan is expanding the concert experience through programs that blend tradition, innovation, and community. Recent projects include Guardian of the Night, an immersive Ravel program at Dupont Underground featuring real-time generative visuals to accompany Gaspard de la nuit, and Bach to the Future, an all-Bach program with musicians of the National Symphony Orchestra incorporating period instruments, modern piano, electronics, and multimedia design. Through Counterpoint, she develops adventurous programs that place canonical works in dialogue with contemporary composers, visual media, and unexpected performance spaces.
Kazaryan holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Jerome Lowenthal and Matti Raekallio, and completed doctoral studies at the University of Michigan under Logan Skelton. She studied at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid with Dmitri Bashkirov, where she received the Sobresaliente Award for outstanding work and excellence from Queen Sofía of Spain. A Fulbright Scholar in Paris, she continued studies with Michel Béroff and focused her research on Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus. Kazaryan serves as Assistant Professor of Piano and Piano Area Coordinator at Howard University.
