Kristina Arakelyan

Described as a ‘rising star’ by the BBC Music Magazine, Kristina Arakelyan is an award-winning composer, pianist and educator. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music and Oxford University, and is currently completing her doctoral studies at King’s College, London, where she leads music theory and composition seminars. She also teaches composition and music theory at the Junior Royal Academy of Music and at Surrey University. Her compositions, which are often praised as lyrical and moving, have been heard on BBC Radio 3 and in distinguished London venues including the Royal Albert Hall, the Southbank Centre, St John’s Smith Square, St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Wigmore Hall, as well as in concert halls in Belgium, Croatia, France, Mexico, Spain, the USA, and in her native Armenia.

Kristina’s recent collaborators have included the BBC Singers, the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Choir of Pembroke College, Oxford, and the Grimeborn Opera Festival. Her music has been featured on the NMC label and on Signum Records, and her piece Daydream was chosen for inclusion in the 2023–2024 ABRSM Grade 2 piano syllabus. Kristina was selected by the BBC as the 2022 UK representative in the prestigious International Rostrum of Composers (IRC), and her a cappella Seascapes was nominated for a 2022 Ivors Composer Award in the choral category.

In 2023 Kristina’s music will be heard at both the BBC Sage Gateshead Proms on 22 July, and at the BBC London Proms, in a late-night recital given by Anna Lapwood at the organ of the Royal Albert Hall on 25 July.