SHORT BIO (300 words)
Tigran Arakelyan is an Armenian-American conductor, podcaster, radio host and entrepreneur. He is the Music Director of Northwest Mahler Festival, the Port Townsend Symphony and Assistant Conductor of California Philharmonic. As the Music Director of Federal Way Youth Symphony and Bainbridge Youth Orchestras, he has helped both organizations grow to the highest youth enrollment in history. Recently, he made his Walt Disney Concert Hall conducting debut and has played alongside Sir James Galway during his induction into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Tigran is a prize winner in The American Prize and at the Global Music Awards. He has programmed diverse concerts with works by William Grant Still, Amy Beach, Alma Mahler, Fanny Mendelssohn, Vasily Kalinnikov and conducted regional premieres by renowned composers Paul Hindemith, Keith Jarrett and James Cohn, among others.
Previously, he held conducting positions with the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra and the Bellingham Symphony. Tigran has taken the Federal Way Youth Symphony on three tours of South Korea. He is the founder of two chamber orchestras, a youth orchestra, composition competition, young artists competition, a music festival and numerous scholarship and funding initiatives. His orchestras have played in many unconventional venues.
He is the host of Let’s Talk Off The Podium (130+ episodes) and the long list of legendary guests include: Evelyn Glennie, George Walker, Mark O'Connor, Christian McBride, Kronos Quartet, JoAnn Falletta, Richard Stoltzman, Sharon Isbin, Vijay Iyer, Christopher Theofanidis, and others. Arakelyan is also the host of Exploring Music on KPTZ (91.9FM).
Invited by Maestro Morlot, Tigran earned the Doctor of Musical Arts in conducting from the University of Washington where he was the first student in the inaugural class of Ludovic Morlot and David A. Rahbee. He is a three time recipient of the AGBU Performing Arts Fellowship.