Music director of the Ashdod Symphony orchestra and until recently has been music director of the Alma-Ata Symphony Orchestra, Vag Papian started his international career having won the Lisbon Viana de Montana International competition.

Vag Papian is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory where he studied under Michael Voskresensky and St Petersburg Conservatory, as a student of Ilia Musin. In 1984 Valery Gergiev invited Papian to become Associate Conductor of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra. He then became Artistic Director and Principle Conductor of the orchestra.

He conducted more than two hundred performances with the orchestra.At the same time Vag Papian conducted the Armenian National Opera. He immigrated to Israel in 1990 and since then was associate conductor with the Beer-Sheva Sinfonietta and was guest conductor of the Israel Camerata.

His international tours as a pianist include concerts in Basel, Barcelona, Geneva, Toronto, Ottawa, New York, as well as tours in South America and Far East. Mr Papian has conducted the English Chamber Orchestra in London, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, the Jerusalem, Moscow, Belgrade, Haifa, Rishon LeZion, Houston, Malmö and Trondheim symphony orchestras and Houston Festival Orchestra and Suwon Festival in Korea, the Enesco Festivaland the Vienna Boys Choir. Mr.

Papian is a professor at the Buchman-Mehta School of Music at the Tel Aviv University. Mr. Papian has made a number of recordings for Melodiya Label and for EMI with Maxim Vengerov.