Concert Experience #2: Rhythm and Fire
Saturday, March 21, 2026
8:00 PM
William E. Endslow Performing Arts Center — Reading Memorial High School, Reading, Massachusetts
Featuring piano soloist Vartan Arakelian.
Vartan Arakelian is a senior at the Buckingham Browne and Nichols School (BB&N) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He began his piano studies at the age of four under the guidance of Lilit Karapetian-Shougarian, and he has had masterclasses with Alexander Korsantia, Krystian Tkaczewski, and Renana Gutman. He also studied with Christopher Hinterhuber at the Mozarteum International Summer Academy in Salzburg, Austria, as well as with Avedis Kouyoumdjian at the Académie musicale de Villecroze in France.
Vartan is an Award Winner of YoungArts’ National Arts Competition. His other achievements include Second Place at the 2024-2025 Boston Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition, Second Prize at the 2023 Chopin International Piano Competition in Hartford, CT, and First Place at the 2022 New England Piano Teachers’ Association (NEPTA) Mildred Freiberg Competition. He was also a Finalist of Boston Pops’ Fidelity Investments Young Artists Competition in 2023 and has won prizes at the Paderewski International Piano Competition and the MMTA Bay State Piano Contest.
Vartan is active as a chamber musician and performs with friends at senior living centers around Boston. In cooperation with the nonprofit organization Music for Food, he has organized student concerts at BB&N to raise awareness about food insecurity and fight hunger in local communities. Vartan has appeared annually at NEPTA’s student recitals as well as the association’s Scholarships for Hope Charitable Recital. He was invited to perform in the 2025 Musical Armenia Concert at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in New York City, and last summer, he was the orchestral pianist for the US premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Gaia Theory with the MIT Summer Philharmonic Orchestra.
In addition to music, Vartan’s interests include math, computer programming, soccer, and traveling.
Falla: Ritual Fire Dance from El amor brujo
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 1
Vartan Arakelian (link to article)