Lilit Danielyan

Born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1975, violinist Lilit Danielyan began music lessons at a young age. Her father, Eduard Danielyan, a historian and head of The Institute of Foreign Languages, recognized young Lilit’s talent for music and taught her to play the piano. At age six, when it was time for her to enter the Tchaikovsky School of Music in Armenia, Danielyan was introduced to the violin.

When she was just 12, Danielyan made her professional debut with the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Saint-Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3. As a student, she won numerous awards, including Second Prize at the Soviet Youth Violin Competition in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1989 and First Prize at the International Mozart Competition in Belgium in 1991. From 1990-91, she performed with the philharmonic in Vienna, Austria, as well as on its first European tour.

Since receiving her diploma in music from the Tchaikovsky School of Music in Armenia in 1992, Danielyan has gone on to achieve success and international recognition. Soon after graduation, she moved to London to study violin at the Royal College of Music, where she was awarded, in 1993, the Ian Stoutzker and Isolda Manges Violin Prize and the Helen Just Prize for Chamber Music. She won the Royal College of Music’s Concerto Competition in 1994, and in 1995 was awarded a private scholarship after an audition for conductor Sir Georg Solti.

While in London, Lilit Danielyan played in the first violin section of London Mozart Players. She also performed recitals throughout the United Kingdom. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the Royal College of Music in 1995. She attended Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the year of 1996 and studied with Ifrah Neaman.

In 1997, Danielyan became a member of the first violin section of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra. Later that year, she moved to the United States and enrolled in the master’s degree program at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. While studying at Bowling Green, Danielyan was Concertmaster of both the Perrysburg (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra and the Bowling Green Philharmonia. In 1998, she was named Associate Principal Second Violin of the Toledo Symphony. She became Principal Second Violin in May of 1999, the same year she graduated from Bowling Green.

Danielyan began her post as violinist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2000. She joins the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 2011. Lilit resides with her husband and two children in Plano. Her husband Grigor is a flutist.