Jury members

Professor Sara Assabayeva is the Head of the Piano department. She was awarded the “Honored Worker of the Republic of Kazakhstan”, “Honorary worker of education of the Republic of Kazakhstan”, “Honored worker of culture of the Republic of Kazakhstan”.

Svetlana Eganian was educated at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow by prestigious teachers such as Bella Davidovich and Zinaida Ignatieva, a disciple of the legendary Samuel Feinberg. She successfully obtained the four first prizes with distinction (soloist, chamber musician, teacher and accompanist- partner of opera singers) appraised by prominent jury members of the Russian school as Tatiana Nicolaeva, Dmitrii Bashkirov, Evgenii Malinin, Lev Naumov, Serguei Dorenski.

Pavel Klinichev graduated from the Moscow State Conservatoire in 2000 (choral, opera and symphony conducting). A year later, he became the Bolshoi staff conductor. His repertoire includes many of the masterpieces of Western and Russian opera and ballet. Under his leadership, the premieres of seventeen ballet performances took place at the Bolshoi Theatre, including the recent ones: The Rite of Spring by I. Stravinsky (2013), Frank Bridge Variations to music by B. Britten, Short Time Together to music by M. Richter and L. van Beethoven, Symphony of Psalms to music by I. Stravinsky, Ondine by H.W. Henze, The Golden Age by D. Shostakovich (all in 2016), Romeo and Juliet by S. Prokofiev (2017), Petrushka by I. Stravinsky (2018 г.), Giselle by A. Adam (2019), Four Characters in Search of a Plot to music by M. Glinka, N. Rimsky-Korsakov, A. Pärt (2020), as well as the premiere of the operetta Moscow, Cheryomushki by D. Shostakovich (2021).

Sergey Sarajyan is coming from family of musicians. (Father-Georgi Sarajev, founder of piano school in Armenia. Mother, Anna Sarajeva- singer, one of leading professors of YKSC). Sergey's musical talents showd up from early childhood and at the age of 6 He was excepted in Tchaikovsky Central Music School. He graduated school by performing 1st piano concerto with orchestra of P. Tchaikovsky.

Valerian Shiukashvili started taking piano lessons at the age of twelve at the Tbilisi Shortly after this, he performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto N.23 with an orchestra. This appearance was highly acclaimed by music critics. Mr. Shiukashvili believes that anyone who chooses to be a musician at the later age is more conscious about his/her decision and makes full effort to achieve the goal.