Marianna Shirinyan

Shirinyan's energy and the clarity of her fingerwork are infectious. GRAMOPHONE MAGAZIN 

Marianna Shirinyan's vivid, virtuosic musicality and charismatic stage presence have made her an internationally sought-after soloist and chamber musician. Full of joy in music-making and with a warmth that communicates directly to audiences, the Armenian-Danish pianist brings fine sensitivity, technical command, and tonal beauty to a wide repertoire.

When Marianna Shirinyan won five prizes at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich in 2006, it marked the beginning of a remarkable career. In Scandinavia in particular, she has since established her reputation as one of the most prominent pianists and a creative and prolific figure in the music world, appearing regularly with the major Nordic orchestras, and taking on the role of artistic director of various chamber music festivals. Most recently, as Artist in Residence, she took an active part in shaping the past season of the Aarhus Symfoniorkester.

She opens the 2026/27 season with Ustvolskaya's Piano Concerto with the Tapiola Sinfonietta under the direction of Eva Ollikainen, as well as with several chamber music concerts, including at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and at the Konzerthaus Stockholm. In October, she returns with Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 to the Odense Symfoniorkester, where she was already Artist in Residence in 2013/14. She performs the complete Beethoven violin sonatas in a single day together with Yura Lee in April at Musikhuset Aarhus. Further chamber music engagements take her, among other places, to the Mizmorim Festival in Basel, as well as — with Katja Riemann and Franziska Hölscher — to the Alte Oper Frankfurt, Lindau and Wolfsburg. In June 2027, she goes on tour through Sweden and Denmark with the Beethoven Orchester Bonn and Dirk Kaftan, appearing as soloist in Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 3 and 5.

Marianna Shirinyan is also a welcome guest on the international stage, having performed with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, I Pomeriggi Musicali di Milano, the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, and the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, under conductors including Andrey Boreyko, Simon Gaudenz, Antonello Manacorda, Eva Ollikainen, Olari Elts, Jun Märkl, Petr Popelka, Daniel Raiskin, Krzysztof Urbański, and Joshua Weilerstein.

Chamber music is another constant in Marianna Shirinyan's artistic life. She currently performs regularly as part of a trio with German actress Katja Riemann and violinist Franziska Hölscher, performing musical-literary programmes based on texts by Katja Riemann and Roger Willemsen. As both chamber musician and soloist, she has appeared at Wigmore Hall in London and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, as well as at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele, the MDR Musiksommer, festivals in Bergen, Stavanger, Sandefjord, and the Lofoten Islands, the Reykjavik Midsummer Festival, and the Oxford Chamber Music Festival.

Marianna Shirinyan's impressive discography has recently been extended by releases featuring works by Maurice Ravel and Alexander Scriabin (La Nuit, 2025), as well as duo recordings with Swedish cellist Torleif Thedéen with chamber music by Clara and Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert, and Richard Strauss (An die Musik, 2024), with Hungarian cellist Dóra Kokas featuring chamber music by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Dmitri Shostakovich (Hypnosis, 2024), and with violist Maxim Rysanov (Shostakovich, 2024).

Marianna Shirinyan's many awards include the P2 Prize of Danish Radio for her contribution to Danish musical life (2010) and the Carl and Anne Marie Nielsen Award (2022). She has been a Steinway Artist since 2013. Having taught as a professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music from 2015 to 2024, she has been a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Music since 2024.

2026/27 season

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