Sylvia Toumaian

Born on February 8, 1990, Sylvia Toumaian is a Cypriot-Greek and Armenian saxophonist and pedagogue. Trained in the French classical saxophone tradition, she is today the first woman and one of the few representatives of classical saxophone in Cyprus.

Born to musician parents, Sylvia Toumaian began studying music at the age of 6. At the age of 10, she devoted herself exclusively to the saxophone, a classical instrument that was little known in Cyprus at the time but which she deeply cherished. With the help of her teacher Irzensky Zbigniev, she obtained the “Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music” (ABRSM) diploma in 2008, unanimously. That same year, she decided to move to Paris to pursue higher studies in music and saxophone.

After several years in the classes of Fabrice Moretti, Jean-Claude Henriot, and Philippe Portejoie, and following the completion of her advanced saxophone diploma, Sylvia Toumaian began her studies at the Pôle Supérieur de Paris Boulogne-Billancourt.

There, she earned a bachelor’s degree in musicology as well as the Diplôme National Supérieur Professionnel de Musique (DNSPM) in saxophone, in the classes of Philippe Portejoie, Jean-Michel Goury, Philippe Ferro, Pascal Lecorps, and Ibrahim Maalouf.

Sylvia Toumaian then turned toward teaching and obtained her State Diploma (DE) in saxophone in 2017. She completed her studies by joining Philippe Geiss’s class at the Strasbourg HEAR Academy, where she earned a Master’s in performance.

Sylvia Toumaian is a laureate of several national and international competitions, including the Paris Saxophone Competition, the Nicolas Economou Foundation Competition, and the Cyprus Saxophone Association Competition.

She has been a member of various orchestras and ensembles, participated in the World Saxophone Congress in Zagreb in 2018, the In of the Avignon Festival in 2016, the World Saxophone Congress in Strasbourg in 2015, and performed with internationally renowned artists such as Arno Bornkamp, Joonathan Rautiola, Hiroshi Hara, Branford Marsalis, Jean-Charles Richard, and Philippe Geiss.

Today, Sylvia Toumaian divides her time between performing and teaching. She teaches at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Intercommunal de Savigny-sur-Orge “Claude Debussy” as well as at the Marcoussis School of Arts and regularly performs in France and Cyprus. Passionate about classical music, especially Russian music, she explores its repertoire on the saxophone and dedicates numerous concerts to the interpretation of works that have never been premiered.