pianist Archives

Yerevan hosts world famous pianist Evgeny Kissin

December 27, 2017 by administrator

The 18th Yerevan Perspectives International Music Festival will conclude with the biggest cultural event – the exceptional recital of world famous pianist Evgeny Kissin. The concert will take place at Armenian National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet named after Alexander Spendiaryan on 27 December.
Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, the world famous musicians said he is very happy to have visited Armenia.

During the upcoming concert, Evgeny Kissin will present the master pieces of Ludwig van Beethoven.
The musician noted he attaches great importance to which country he holds a concert tour. According to him, each country has its own image and the unique culture, adding that diversity is what makes our planet wealthy.

Kissin singled out some compositions of Armenian musicians Komitas, Babajanyan and Khachatryan as his favorites.

“I am interested in what makes part of the Armenian culture – a part of the old civilization,” he stressed.
Asked whether he is interested in the contemporary music, the pianist said he is interested in every talented piece of music regardless of time, adding however he has not still had an opportunity to perform the works of contemporary composers.

Kissin noted that he has never had any inclinations to have compositions written specially for him, but it is important for him that everyone enjoy the music. “One year ago a famous composer told me he wanted to compose a piece for me. Since I did not know what would come out of it I promised nothing, but I said if there is idea, it must be realized,” he said.

The musician resumed his creative activity after a long pause. Many of his newly created works were performed, receiving the approval of the experts.

At the end, Evgeny Kissin noted he did not understand anything from the words of his Armenian counterparts, but he thinks that the Armenian language sounds like the Armenian architecture – beautiful and somewhat cruel.

Australians excited about upcoming concert of renowned Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan

June 3, 2017 by administrator

A large concert hall and sold out tickets – this is how Australians welcome celebrated Armenian pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan, who will perform in Sidney on June 4 in the framework of his ‘An Ancient Observer’ Album concert tour, theaustralian.com.au reports.

“Hamasyan’s latest album is An Ancient Observer, a wildly acclaimed solo piano project that is his second release on the prestigious Nonesuch label,” the article notes.

The source notes that the success of the Armenian musician is based on his diverse music, comprising elements of the Armenian folk music, 1970s rock, jazz and funk.

“Tigran Hamasyan can safely be described as a contemporary Armenian bard: his compositions have unique meaning and tell about life,” theaustralian.com.au summed up.

To note, in the framework of ‘An Ancient Observer’ Album concert tour, Tigran Hamasyan performed at Armenia’s Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall on 7 and 8 May. The concert tour will last till the end of 2018.

Hamasyan was born in Gyumri, Armenia in 1987. He began playing piano at the age of three, and started performing in festivals and competitions when he was 11 years old, winning the Montreux Jazz Festival’s piano competition in 2003. He released his debut album, World Passion, at the age of 18 in 2006. That same year he won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition. Subsequent albums include New Era (2008), Red Hail (2009), and A Fable (2011), for which he was awarded a Victoires de la Musique (the equivalent of a Grammy Award in France). Most recently he won the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Contemporary Music in 2013.

Armenia: Svetlana Navasardyan – a true phenomenon as a pianist and a citizen alike Video

October 29, 2016 by administrator

Svetlana Navasardyan’s name is written in golden letters in the history of our performance art, Lilit Yepremyan, PhD in Art, Doctor at Yerevan State Conservatory said in an interview with Panorama.am, speaking of the RA People’s Artist, pianist Svetlana Navasardyan.

To note, Svetlana Navasardyan who is a professor at the Yerevan State Musical Conservatory is marking today the 70th anniversary of her birthday.

Svetlana Navasardyan was born in Yerevan in 1946. By the age of 9, she was demonstrating a rare gift, performing a recital of the complete Bach 2- and 3-part Inventions. She studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory with Professors Yakov Zak and Vache Umr-Shat, following the traditions of the great Heinrich Neuhaus. Wider recognition came at the age of 19, when she won the Schumann International Piano Competition (1966), launching an international career as a piano soloist.

Among the other major competition won by Svetlana include the International Bach Competition (1968), Queen Elizabeth Competition (1972), and the Sidney Piano Competition (1977). Hailed as “the great Armenian pianist”, she has toured more than 40 countries – including the US, Canada, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Japan, China, Australia, Egypt, and Kuwait. Svetlana has performed in numerous prestigious music festivals, and in major concert halls around the world – including the “Bolshoi Hall” of the Moscow Conservatory, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Salle Gaveau of Paris, the Sidney Opera Hall, and the Asahi Hall in Tokyo, among many others. She has performed with such esteemed conductors as Vladimir Spivakov, Evgeni Svetlanov, Valery Gergiev, Vassili Sinayski, Karl Etti, Ruben Aharonian, and many others.

“Svetlana is a world-known person, great master and musician, She is phenomenon as a pianist and a citizen alike,” Mrs. Yepremyan said.

To note, both Svetlana Navasardyan and Lilit Yepremyan were in the piano class of professor Vache Umr-Shat.
“Umr-Shat was the one who created his own school in Armenia, that was unique, interesting and deep. There are few people who could grasp and truly develop his principles. The most significant idea of the professor’s approach is that music is a road toward a clarity, transparency and the nature, where no formalities and artificial beauty exist,” Lilit Yepremyan described Vache Umr-Shat’s piano school.

To Yepremyan’s words, Svetlana Navasardyan represents herself completely through her comments, which generate a way of thinking raising the most sacred layers of the human being and the universe. Yepremyan also highly appreciates the pianist’s interpretations that are seen as unique approaches. “Every note passed through herself belongs to her, and no one one can play in the same way,” Yepremyan explained.

“Music is the mirror of a spirit and never lies. If a human being loses his values, the music plays no more. Navasardyan’s music fully expresses the richness of her soul and great thinking,” Yepremyan said.

The Speaker of Armenia’s National Assembly Galust Sahakyan today sent a congratulatory message to Svetlana Navasardyan on the occasion of her birthday anniversary, emphasizing her individual accomplishments as a pianist as well as her pedagogical input in educating generations of musicians.

Armenian pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan’s “Atmospheres” promises seductive improv army: The Guardian

September 5, 2016 by administrator

The Guardian’s main jazz critic, John Fordham has published a review of a jazz album – “Atmosphères” – by Armenian pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan in collaboration with 3 Norwegian musicians – Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset and Jan Bang.

“As the charismatic young Armenian-American pianist Tigran Hamasyan made plain from the start, his ancestry would always anchor his music however eclectic and westernised it became,” Fordham said.

“Hamasyan’s folk references (notably to Komitas, Armenia’s legendary composer-priest) bring a timeless lyrical lilt to the contemporary sound of this new electro-acoustic quartet, which features the luminous trumpet sound of Arve Henriksen, guitars by Eivind Aarset and cutting-edge electronics from Jan Bang.

“The pairing of Hamasyan and Henriksen, meanwhile, brings an unexpectedly song-based seductiveness to an all-improv session including such hi-tech experimenters as Aarset and Bang. One CD rather than two might have tightened the drama and dynamics, but the sounds herein – Henriksen’s opulent midrange tones and pleading ascents amid Hamasyan’s bubbling-stream ruminations; discreetly skittish dances; plugged effects mimicking horn harmonies; and occasional exhilarating free-improv – announce the arrival of an elite collective with a distinctive identity and big potential.”

In a Facebook post on August 23, Hamasyan said that pretty much 95% of the album titled “Atmosphères” is improvised and recorded in 2 days in a studio in Lugano, Switzerland.

Pianist Evgeny Kissin reiterates decision not to perform in Turkey

December 15, 2015 by administrator

Prominent pianist Evgeny Kissin said he would not perform in Turkey until its government acknowledges that the mass murder of Armenians in 1915 was genocide, the New York Times reports.

“I personally believe that if people in such countries learn that some musicians refuse to play there because they are dismayed by what their rulers do, that will make intelligent-thinking people more aware,” he said in an interview with the paper.

Kissin also added that he does “not judge or condemn colleagues who perform in totalitarian countries – it’s a personal choice.”

On May 26, Kissin gave a special concert at Carnegie Hall titled “With You, Armenia: A Concert to Commemorate the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide.” Sponsored by the Yerevan Perspectives International Music Festival, the event was part of an international tour featuring the impressive Hover State Chamber Choir, founded by Sona Hovhannisyan, who conducted the impressive 25-voice ensemble in the rewarding first half of the program. There were arrangements of Armenian folk songs and liturgical works, several contemporary selections, a Britten carol and the world premiere of a choral setting of Psalm 3 by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki composed in remembrance of the Genocide.

Earlier in the framework of Yerevan Perspectives International Music Festival, Kissin performed on April 2 a solo concert in Armenian National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet.

The New York Times. Evgeny Kissin Will Indulge His Love of Yiddish Poetry at Carnegie Hall

Award-wining Armenian Pianist Plays On Armenia-Turkey Border ANI (Western Armenia)

June 22, 2015 by administrator

By Siranush Ghazanchyan,

Armenian award-wining pianist Tigran Hamasyan played in a concert organised at historical Ani Ruins on Armenia-Turkey border. Tigran Hamasyan started his “Concerts at 100 Churches” tour at historical Ani Ruins on Armenia-Turkey border, where there are three Armenian churches and a cathedral dated at.

Armenian award-wining pianist Tigran Hamasyan played in a concert organised at historical Ani Ruins on Armenia-Turkey border.

Tigran Hamasyan started his “Concerts at 100 Churches” tour at historical Ani Ruins on Armenia-Turkey border, where there are three Armenian churches and a cathedral dated at the 10th century.

Hamasyan is expected to play in some other churches in Turkey related to his “Concerts at 100 Churches” tour, which will include Armenian churches in Armenia, Georgia, Lebanon, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Germany, Luxemburg, Russia and the US.

At the age of three Tigran Hamasyan began to play melodies on his family’s piano and he went to a music school from the age of six. He studied jazz from the age of nine, then tried to incorporate local folk melodies into jazz-form improvisations when in his teens. Hamasyan, together with his parents and sister moved to Yerevan when he was around 10 and then to California when he was 16, where, as of October 2013, he continues to live.

He won 3rd Prize Concours International de Piano-Jazz Martial Solal in Paris in 2002, 1st Prize Jazz à Juan Révélations in the jazz instrumental category and 1st Prize Prix de la Critique et du Public, Concours de Piano du Montreux Jazz Festival in 2003, when he was 18 years old.

Tamar Nalcı, organiser of Tigran Hamasyan’s concerts in Turkey, said, award wining pianist was working with a team of 25 people for the “Concerts at 100 Churches”. “The concerts are being filming to produce a documentary. It is very important for us holding the first concert in historical Ani Ruins, a very important site for Armenians.”

Source: Haberler

A Jazz Pianist Taps #Armenian Folk, Metal Riffs And A Sense Of History

March 8, 2015 by administrator

jazz artist Tigran Hamaysan.
Maeve Stam/Courtesy of the artist

Musicians arrive at their signature sounds through all sorts of influences. For jazz pianist Tigran Hamaysan, that collection of sounds comes from far afield — he’s a fan of progressive metal bands like Tool and Meshuggah — as well as from his backyard.

Hamasyan was born in Armenia, moved to Los Angeles and New York, then returned to his homeland as an adult to get more in touch with his roots. His new album Mockroot is inspired partly by the work of Bedros Tourian, a 19th-century Armenian poet who died at 21. Hamaysan says he didn’t need to use Tourian’s words — indeed, the songs based on the poet’s work are sung in invented syllables from no certain language — to capture his essence.

“Everybody considered him super-melancholy, super-dark, but I don’t agree with that. He has poems that are on the darker side, but all of his poems have light in them; you end up being enlightened and full of life after reading him,” Hamaysan says. “I like finding inspiration through poems, but not necessarily using them as lyrics to songs. Sometimes the music that I write doesn’t need to have lyrics, it just needs vowels.”

Tigran Hamaysan spoke with NPR’s Arun Rath about exploring the diverse dark history of his small country, and why he thinks traditional approaches to piano ignore much of what the instrument is capable of. Hear their conversation at the audio link.