Hailed by the London Times as "a pianist of powerful physical and imaginative muscle," Tanya Gabrielian has captivated audiences worldwide with her gripping performances. She has performed on four continents in acclaimed venues including Carnegie Hall in New York, Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Sydney Opera House, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall in London, and the Salle Cortot in Paris, with such orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, New London Sinfonia, and the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra.

Gabrielian will perform Schumann's Papillons, Op. 2, and Schubert's Piano Sonata in A Minor, D845, followed by a masterclass with UCLA student pianists Sophia Su, Duong Phan and Brandon Zhou, playing Chopin and Brahms.

Gabrielian’s interests have always been diverse. Admitted to Harvard University to study biomedical engineering at the age of sixteen, Gabrielian instead pursued a career in music, completing her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the Royal Academy of Music in London, originally studying both piano and viola. She received the prize for the best final recital for all six years of study and received a DipRAM, the highest performance award given by the Royal Academy of Music. Gabrielian then finished her studies at The Juilliard School as the only candidate accepted for the prestigious Artist Diploma, an extraordinarily selective post-graduate residency program. She has studied with Matti Raekallio, Ursula Oppens, Robert McDonald, Hamish Milne, and Alexander Satz. Gabrielian is an Assistant Professor of Piano at Boston University and a Shigeru Kawai Recording Artist.

In addition to the traditional concert stage, Gabrielian is passionate about inspiring new generations of musicians and music lovers in diverse settings, dedicated to community engagement, education, and activism through art. Projects have included collaborations with the National Alliance on Mental Illness in programs featuring composers with mental illnesses, highlighting the stigma around mental health issues; founding an interactive performance series for patients at the New York State Psychiatric Institute; an installation with the artist Fran Bull for the exhibit In Flanders Fields: A Meditation on War; and a multidisciplinary collaboration combining Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross with final statements from executed death row inmates. For her work, Gabrielian was awarded the Pro Musicis International Award, McGraw-Hill Robert Sherman Award for Music Education and Community Outreach, Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and the S&R Washington Award, and she has held Artist-in-Residencies at Guild Hall and 23Arts.

This event is made possible thanks to a gift from Barbara Abell who established the David L. Abell Piano Masters Series in honor of her late husband. Pianos were a passion for David, the owner of David L. Abell’s Fine Pianos in Los Angeles, which became a hot-spot for musical legends such as Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, Andre Previn, George Shearing, Bob Hope, Tony Bennett, and Benny Carter. We are proud to celebrate this program as part of the 2019-20 David L. Abell Piano Master Series.