Vag Papian

Vag Papian was born in 1956 in Yerevan

Vag Papian was born on June 5, 1956, in Yerevan, Armenia, then part of the Soviet Union. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied with Mikhail Voskresensky. In 1982 he began studying conducting at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory under Ilya Musin.

In 1979 he won the Vianna da Motta International Competition in Lisbon and began giving concerts across the Soviet Union. In 1984 Valery Gergiev invited him to be junior conductor of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, and about 3 years later he became its chief conductor and artistic director. He also worked with the Armenian National Opera from 1988 to 1990.

He immigrated to Israel in 1990 and has since taught conducting and piano at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University. He has guest conducted orchestras in London, Japan, Moscow and elsewhere, and toured and recorded with violinist Maxim Vengerov. He first appeared in Israel with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005.

Since 2006 he has been music director and chief conductor of the Chamber Opera Orchestra in Ashdod. He lives in Jaffa, and his daughter is the actress Suzanna Papian. His son David, a sergeant in the Givati Brigade, was killed in a battle on the Gaza Strip border in 2008.