B.F.A, M.M., D.M.A. University of Minnesota

Christopher Kachian, guitarist, has performed and taught clinics and master classes in the UK, Ireland, Austria, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, France, Sweden, Russia, Africa, Cuba, Costa Rica, Japan, China, and throughout North and South America, as recitalist, chamber musician and in concerto soloist.

He has appeared with the Heidelberger Kammerorchester, Kammerensemble Cologne and Radio Symphonie Orchester des Hessischen Rundfunks, the Minnesota Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Opera, the Minneapolis Civic Orchestra, the St. Paul Civic Orchestra, the Kenwood Chamber Orchestra, the Heartland Symphony, the Grand Forks Symphony, at the Lake Tahoe Summer Music Festival and numerous festival orchestras.

American performances have included a significant number of works written in the last twenty years, many of them commissions. These include over thirty works for guitar including 12 concerti. He has written Composer's Desk Reference for the Classic Guitar in consultation with over 25 composers, published by Mel Bay Publications. He has been heard on Minnesota Public Radio, National Public Radio and American Public Media (including several appearances on A Prairie Home Companion).

Notable premiere recordings include Conrad Susa's Carols and Lullabies (RCA 1995), David Baker's Images, Shadows and Dreams (Collins Classics 1996 and Clarion as Dance Like the Wind, Music of Today's Black Composers), Woodwind Music (Innova 1997), phoenix ensemble#1 (Valve-Hearts [Cologne, Germany] 1998), Falls Flyer (10,000 Lakes 2002), Cyprus, First Impressions (Innova 2006), The J.S. Bach Sonatas for Gamba and Harpsichord for Guitar and Harpsichord by Chris Kachian and David Jenkins (2007). Numerous other recordings of music ranging from blues to Christmas music are in his discography.

Since 1984, Dr Kachian has directed one of the largest guitar programs in the USA at the University of St Thomas where he is professor of music. He has lectured in music of Europe, the Americas, the Twentieth-Century, the World, the United States, Film, and Guitar Pedagogy and Guitar Literature.

2001 - 2005, he became the Director of Guitar Studies for MMTA for whom he lead, authored and edited the nation's first comprehensive, multi-genre guitar pedagogy syllabus.

Notable premiere performances are Astor Piazzolla's Double Concerto and Franz Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata, as well as an ongoing series of all-Baroque with keyboardist, David Jenkins, with the Society for the Doctrinal Affectation of Baroque Music, an early music ensemble.