2024 Radda Rise International String Competition
Simon Hagopian
Grand Prize
•Category 4
Simon Hagopian was born into a musical family in 2004. When he was four years old, Simon began studying at the Special Music School in New York City with Viktor Basis. In 2014, he was a first prize winner in the Vivo International Competition and won “Best Performer Award”. The following year, Simon was one of the first prize winners in the American Protege Competition and was awarded “Judges Favorite Award Winner”. Later in 2015, he was the first prize winner in the junior string division of the Cremona International Music Academy festival competition, and performed as a soloist with one of the festival orchestras the following year. Beginning in 2016, Simon began studying with Christina Khimm and Aaron Rosand. In 2017, he performed at the Armenian Embassy in Washington DC, at an event in honor of renowned soloist Sergey Khatchaturyan. The following year, Simon was one of the winners of the Kaufman Music Center Concerto Competition, and performed at Merkin Hall with the Orchestra. Simon was accepted to Juilliard Pre-College at age 13, where he began studying with Li Lin. He attended Pre-College from 2018-2022 and has been studying at the College Division since 2022. In addition to Violin, Simon has been playing the piano for many years and studied piano at Lucy Moses from 2016-2022. He also composes music and has taken private composition lessons at Juilliard Precollege with Manuel Sosa. He has performed in master classes for pedagogues including Ida Kavafian and Masao Kawasaki.