Lilit Tonoyan
With the Armenian violinist Lilit Tonoyan, two musical cultures are combined in a special way. With the violinist Lilit Tonoyan, who was born and raised in Yerevan/Armenia, two musical cultures are combined in a special way: Influenced by the diverse traditional music of her homeland, the artist has been intensively involved with Armenian vocal and instrumental music since studying the Western music canon in Germany. In 2008, she founded the Cologne World Jazz Ensemble, which mainly combines traditional Armenian music with jazz and improvisation. With the band, she won a special prize at the Citroën Music Competition in 2012 and was a finalist at Creole NRW in 2013. With her newly founded band WeltenBaum, she plays world music, improvisation and jazz for children.

Since 2015, Lilit Tonoyan has been intensively involved with the sacred music of Armenia. Since there are hardly any instrumental versions of these works to date, she has dedicated herself to the task of arranging selected sacred songs from the early Middle Ages for violin, sometimes in duo with violoncello. Cellist Davit Melkonyan has been involved in the project since the beginning of 2017. In juxtaposition with selected pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, both musicians recorded these arrangements for the Kaleidos label under the title Amen Hayr Surb. The recording was released in spring 2018 and has received numerous press praise.

Lilit Tonoyan is currently completing a master's degree in historical instruments with a focus on baroque violin under Prof. Richard Gwilt at the Cologne University of Music and Dance.

Lilit Tonoyan came to Germany from Armenia in 2007 with a DAAD scholarship and studied at the Cologne University of Music and Dance in the classes of Prof. Ingeborg Scheerer and Prof. Albrecht Winter; she completed her master's degree there in 2012. She also received decisive inspiration from Professors Anthony Spiri (chamber music), Dirk Mommertz (chamber music), Richard Gwilt (early music) and David Smeyers (new music).

Tonoyan has won numerous awards at competitions, such as the Khachaturyan Competition in Armenia and the Henri Marteau International Violin Competition. She has received scholarships from the Wagner Foundation, the Günther Wand Foundation and currently the German Chamber Academy Neuss. In 2015, the violinist won the Neuss City Art Prize for her arrangement of an Armenian sacred song (Ter voghormea) and her interpretation of a Bach sonata.