Emmanuel Tjeknavorian

Emmanuel Tjeknavorian has served as Music Director of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano since September 2024. In his very first season, he led the orchestra in its first international appearance under his artistic leadership at the Rheingau Music Festival, and will also take the orchestra to perform at the KKL Lucerne.

Alongside his work in Milan, the 2025/26 season will see Tjeknavorian appear with the Orchestra Rai Torino, the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, and return engagements with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra della Toscana, Dresdner Philharmoniker, Grazer Philharmoniker, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo. He will also make his operatic debuts with Un Ballo in Maschera at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro directed by Claus Guth at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.
In recent seasons, he has conducted a.o. the Filarmonica della Scala, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, SWR Symphonieorchester, Bremer Philharmoniker, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, DR Symfoniorkestret Copenhagen, Dresdner Philharmonie, hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Orchestra della Toscana, and the Orquesta Sinfónica de RTVE. He also led the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in a concert performance of Johann Strauss’ operetta Die Fledermaus at the Musikverein Graz.

Prior to embarking on his career as a conductor, Tjeknavorian made a name for himself internationally as a solo violinist, having performed in the world’s most renowned concert halls alongside many of the leading musicians of our time. He plays a violin by Antonio Stradivari (Cremona 1698), on generous loan from a patron of the Beare’s International Violin Society.

Emmanuel Tjeknavorian is winner of the prestigious Abbiati-Prize, an OPUS Klassik award winner and has released several recordings as both a violinist and a conductor.

© photo Angelica Concari