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The Tchaikovsky Competition is one of the oldest and most important competitions in the music world. And, of course, I am very happy that I was lucky enough to be among the winners. Probably, this was facilitated by a great competitive and concert experience, a well-chosen program and appropriate training, and the fact that I participated in this competition for the second time.

I started studying at the Sayat-Nova music school in Yerevan, Armenia. Then I continued studies at the Gnessin music school in Moscow. I studied at the Moscow Conservatoire and at the Royal College of Music in London.

I have had three major mentors in my life in violin and in my specialty. First of all, I must mention the professor of the conservatory, Eduard Grach, with whom I studied the longest – almost thirteen years.

But I started studying at a music school with Levon Zoryan, my first teacher, who gave me a great school, as Edaurd Hrach later said when I came to audition for him: "You have received an excellent school in Yerevan, there is no need to change anything, we will only continue to develop." That's what happened.

And of course I should mention my professor in London, Yitzhak Rozhkowski, with whom, unfortunately, I did not study for so long, only two years. Professor Rozhkovskaya gave me a lot of things from the point of view of European performing school, and a lot of interesting information.

I am very grateful to these people, my teachers!

I had no intention of participating in the XV Tchaikovsky Competition, since I was already a laureate in 2002. Also in my "luggage" there were many other competitions and laureates, and, to be honest, by that time I had sworn off playing at international competitions, and was going to be engaged exclusively in concert activities and creativity.

But seeing what the highest level is going to hold a contest, there was a great temptation to speak at this wonderful event before this jury and, again, in front of the Moscow public.

So I took a chance. The risk was justified, everything ended well. I do not regret that I made such a choice then. It was probably a spontaneous decision made just three months before the contest.

Naturally, after the contest, life changed. Before the competition, I toured, I had concerts, but after the competition I had some new contacts, new invitations, completely new countries, cities and organizations with which I had not communicated before. It was certainly beautiful! Naturally, I received a lot more offers for performances than it was before the competition.

In the organization of the competition, both mine and the previous ones, as well as the last one, which was in 2019 , to be honest, I was satisfied with everything, I did not see any mistakes or deviations. Everything was wonderful! As for the principle of organizing concerts and events in general, I think it is very important in our time to properly educate the tastes of the public, because how the programs of concerts, performances and so on are formed depends on how the public goes to concerts.

For example, if some concert organizations believe, say, that you can't play a lot of music by Shostakovich, Prokofiev or other great composers, because the audience only wants to listen to Piazzolla, then this is certainly wrong! Thus, in a few years, the public will naturally listen only to Piazzolla, and the brilliant works of great composers will already be alien to it, unfortunately. Therefore, I would like to say ROSCONCERT to influence the public's taste by correctly forming its programs.

I would like to say that the introduction to the art of novice young people would be very interesting, bright and sincere.