Vashé Sharafyan was born om 1966 in Yerevan, Armenia. He studied composition at the Yerevan State Conservatory with Eduard Mirzoyan and won the All-Union Composer's Competition in Moscow in 1985. From 1992 to 1996 he taught music theory and sacred music at the Jerusalem Theological Armenian Seminary in Israel and authored a Book of Chants for the Holy Sepulchre Church of Jerusalem. As an official composer for the Silk Road Project since 2001, his compositions were performed by the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Ya Ma in the most prestigious concert halls of the world.
His work includes a number of chamber, symphonic, choral and vocal compositions, and several of them have been performed worldwide by Yuri Bashmet and the Moscow soloists. He is generally regarded as being one of the most acclaimed composers of Armenia and is currently teaching composition at the Yerevan State Conservatory.
