The Georgisches Kammerorchester Ingolstadt was founded in 1964 in Tbilisi/Georgia, as the Georgian State Chamber Orchestra. After twenty-six years based in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, the orchestra moved to Ingolstadt, where it has made its second home. Its new life in Bavaria is nothing other than a continuation of the old, under different conditions. Continuity is a principle of this very Eastern European orchestra, which always – including in exile – stayed true to its character. Even today the orchestra in Ingolstadt still consists almost of musicians from Georgia, the former Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe.
The orchestra has been strongly artistically influenced by its director of many years, the violinist Liana Issakadze, as well as by conductors such as Yehudi Menuhin and Kurt Masur. Between 2000 and 2006, Markus Poschner headed the ensemble, followed by Ariel Zuckermann until 2011. Lavard Skou Larsen then became chief conductor. In 2014 the Los Angeles-born conductor Benjamin Shwartz was Artistic Director, and now in 2015 the Armenian Ruben Gazarian leads from the podium of the Georgians.
Distinguished guest conductors and a phalanx of exceptional international artistic personalities have also appeared with the orchestra, for example David Oistrach, Barbara Hendricks, Svjatoslav Richter and Daniil Shafran. In more recent times Heinrich Schiff, Tabea Zimmermann, Juan Diego Florez, Gidon Kremer, Edita Gruberova, Giora Feidman, Eliso Virsaladze, Lynn Harrell, Rudolf Buchbinder, Christian Zacharias, Lisa Batiashvili, François Leleux, Natalia Gutman, Sharon Kam, Diana Damrau, Zoltán Kocsis, Alfredo Perl, the KOLSIMCHA ensemble, Gilles Apap, Maxim Vengerov, Nikolai Tokarev and Khatia Buniatishvili have provided further artistic impulses.
The Georgisches Kammerorchester Ingolstadt considers itself an ensemble not only responsible for a significantly broad repertoire, but also as a cultural ambassador for the City of Ingolstadt. This involves activities beyond the subscription concerts. The orchestra gives about ninety concerts a year at music festivals, such as the Kreuth International Music Festival or the Oettinger Residenz Concerts. It also performs abroad, for example in Spain, France, Georgia, Austria and in Switzerland.

For sixteen years – from 2002 to 2018 – Ruben Gazarian was the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn. Both the orchestra and the search committee elected him unanimously. In more than 860 concerts and 26 CD productions of this time, he enriched the standard repertory of the orchestra by occasionally expanding it to symphonic dimensions and by selecting numerous works from the Romantic and early modern eras as well as from the avant-garde. In recognition of his achievements during the long Heilbronn tenure, he was awarded the Golden Coin of the city in 2018.
In addition to his Heilbronn position, at the beginning of 2015 Ruben Gazarian became the Artistic Director of the Georgian Chamber Orchestra Ingolstadt. In the same manner, this appointment arose from the unanimous wish of the orchestra, its management and the cultural representatives of the city. In May 2017, the contract between the Georgian Chamber Orchestra and Ruben Gazarian was extended by another three years. In advance, the orchestra expressed its unanimous support for the renewal of the contract.
As guest conductor Ruben Gazarian has directed such renowned orchestras as the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, the WDR-Sinfonieorchester Köln, hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the Kassel State Theater Orchestra, the Deutsches-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Frankfurt Museum Orchestra (Frankfurt Opera Orchestra), the Hessian State Orchestra Wiesbaden, the Southwest Philharmonic Konstanz, the Northwest German Philharmonic Herford, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Rishon LeZion (Tel Aviv Opera Orchestra), the Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, Zurich Chamber Orchestra and many others.
He also conducted numerous live and studio recordings for the Southwest German Broadcasting Corporation (SWR, Südwestrundfunk), the Hessian Broadcasting Corporation (HR, Hessischer Rundfunk), the West German Broadcasting Corporation (WDR, Westdeutscher Rundfunk), Deutschlandradio, the Central German Broadcasting Corporation (MDR, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk), Radio Svizzera Italiana, Radio France Musique, Radio Denmark (DR, Danmarks Radio) and others.
Gazarian works successfully with acclaimed musicians such as Gautier and Renaud Capuçon, Julia Fischer, Hilary Hahn, Katia & Marielle Labèque, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Sabine Meyer, Viktoria Mullova, Sergey Nakariakov, Gerhard Oppitz, Fazil Say, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, Frank Peter Zimmermann, the Beaux Arts Trio, the Gewandhaus-Quartet and several others.
The rich discography of the past years documents the extent of Gazarians repertoire and the quality of his interpretations, born of meticulous rehearsal work, profound emotional understanding and firm mastery over a broad range of periods and styles.
Ruben Gazarians musical education began quite early. His father gave him his first violin lessons at the age of four. He was educated at the music college P.I. Tchaikovsky and studied further at the National Conservatoire in Yerevan, where one of his teachers was Ruben Aharonian, the first violinist of the famous Borodin Quartet.
His career as a performer started in 1983, with recitals, chamber music and soloist appearances with chamber and symphonic orchestras.
In 1990 Ruben Gazarian became the violinist of the piano trio of the State Radio of Armenia – the youngest violinist ever in the ensemble’s history. In addition to its numerous concerts at home and abroad, the trio made a number of recordings for the archives of radio and television.
In 1991, Gazarian was appointed first violinist and soloist of the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia.
In October 1992, he entered the Leipzig Conservatoire (Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy) for a postgraduate violin study, concluded it in 1995 with the obligatory concert performance, after which he registered for the curriculum of orchestra conducting, graduating in May 1998 with first-class honors.
From 1993 to 1998, Gazarian held the position of the first concertmaster of the Westsächsisches Symphonieorchester (Symphonic Orchestra of Western Saxony). In 1999, he was appointed principal conductor of this same orchestra after a long selection process, thus becoming Germany’s youngest principal conductor at the time, a position he kept until the summer of 2002.
Shortly before taking up his position in Heilbronn in September 2002, Ruben Gazarian became a laureate of the first “Sir Georg Solti” international conducting competition in Frankfurt am Main.