Nelly Schmalenberg-Chatschaturjan

Nelly Chatschaturjan was born in Agarak/Armenia. Her elder brothers got musical instructions, and one of them played the piano. Two-year-old Nelly asked him to show her what to do with those black and white keys. So he played etudes for her, which she imitated on the instrument. She learnt to read the music and soon it became difficult to get her away from the piano. She then went to Tschaikovski musical high school in Jerevan, and she played her first public concert with the local philharmonic orchestra at eleven.
Before her migration to East Germany, Nelly was trained at the state conservatoire of Jerevan and took private lessons with Prof Lew Vlassenko and Prof Jakob Milstein in Moscow. She gave concerts all over her home country.
Nelly completed her studies at the conservatoire “Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy”, Leipzig, with Prof Karl-Heinz Pick and Prof Andreas Pistorius.
After her musical and pedagogical diploma studies, she attended international master classes, for example in Hannover with Prof Lev Naumov, in Vienna with Prof Paul Badura-Skoda and in Paris with Prof Bernard Ringeissen.
Besides working as a piano pedagogue at several German conservatoires and musical schools and as a musical assistant and répétiteur at a number of German theatres, Nelly has never stopped giving concerts and has also developed into an excellent accompanist. She lives in Berlin where she works as a freelance pianist and piano teacher.