Brazilian-born musician descending from Armenians, his versatility allows him to work as an orchestral and a choir conductor, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, orchestrator, and composer for stage, film, and multimedia.
As a studio artist, he has been recording and orchestrating music for many TV channels, such as HBO, MTV, Disney, Globo, and ESPN.
His music has been performed in Brazil and abroad, in countries such as Greece, Finland, Armenia, and the USA.
As a conductor, maestro Kurkdjian leads the Vahakn Minassian Choir of the Armenian collectivity of São Paulo State. He served as an Assistant Conductor of the City of Taubaté Symphonic Band, as a guest conductor of the Taubaté Youth Symphony Orchestra, and many other ensembles as well, doing performances all over the country, as in Argentina and in the United States as well.
Created, founded, and leads the Sphaera Rock Orchestra, which has a fruitful collaboration with composers from around the globe, making world premieres and encouraging new compositions, and also advocating the breaking barriers on different musical genres, in addition to making Brazilian premières of several pieces of contemporary music of Armenia, in a collaboration with young composers of this very nation. The group also enjoys performing rock and film music as well.
In 2015, as part of the Armenian Genocide Centennial remembrance, Mr. Kurkdjian composed “Brazil’IAN – In Honor of the Armenian Genocide Centennial”, a music piece in homage to his people in an attempt to demand the recognition of the Armenian genocide to the world. This piece was selected by the maestro Aram Talalyan to take part in the program of the “Talalyan Brothers Festival”, in 2016, receiving its Armenian première at the Komitas Chamber Music Hall by the string ensemble of the State Youth Orchestra of Armenia, under the direction of Aram Talalyan.
In 2017 he received a commission from the Armenian Pops Orchestra to compose an orchestral piece to be performed at the Ambassador Auditorium in Los Angeles, CA, representing the Armenian diáspora of South America at the Sounds of the Diaspora concert, which happened on March 26th and has given a great reputation to the composer.
He has been working as an electric violinist and orchestrator along with world-famous rock bands, such as Sepultura and Plebe Rude.
Mr. Kurkdjian is a Laureate Commander of the Arts by the Artistic Society Carlos Gomes.
He has been honored by the City Council of São Paulo and by the National Armenian Council of Brazil.
Maestro Alexey Kurkdjian has a Bachelor of Music degree from
“Uni-FIAM-FAAM” and post-graduate studies in Musicology from both State of São Paulo University (UNESP) and Universidade de São Paulo (USP).