[2] Hakhnazaryan was born and raised by his musician parents in Yerevan, Armenia, where he began studying cello at the age of six at the Sayat Nova Music School.
He was admitted to the Moscow Conservatory in 2006,[3] where he took cello lessons from Alexey Seleznyov and later received scholarships from the Rostropovich Foundation and the Russian Performing Arts Fund.
In 2008, he won both the first prize at the Johansen International Competition for Young String Players and the first prize at the International Auditions of the Young Concert Artists, after which he made his debut at New York's Carnegie Hall and at the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC.
[5] He was mentored by Mstislav Rostropovich and obtained an Artist Diploma after studying with Lawrence Lesser at the New England Conservatory.
He has also played at music festivals in London, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Tivoli, Mikkeli, Lucerne, and Verbier.