PERFECT MOODS – CONTEMPLATIVE, CONTEMPORARY PIANO MINIATURES

Mikael Ayrapetyan is a pianist, composer, producer and teacher, as well as a researcher and public figure. He has done much to popularise Armenian classical music all over the world with his Secrets of Armenia musical project, which began during his studies at the Moscow Conservatory. Born in 1984 in Yerevan, Armenia, he studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory, and continues to uphold the performing traditions of the Russian piano school, of which Konstantin Igumnov, Samuel Feinberg and Lev Oborin are luminaries. His repertoire ranges from the Baroque to the contemporary and includes rarely performed works by Armenian composers. This period was the start of his extensive concert activity in which he performs works by Tigranian, Chukhadjian, Komitas, Melikian, Spendiarian, Barkhudarian, Stepanian, Khachaturian, Babajanian, Arutyunian, Abrahamian, Bagdasarian, Avetisian, Mirzoyan, Amirkhanian and many other Armenian composers, which eventually led him to produce his own concerts. He was awarded the State Prize of the Republic of Armenia for his outstanding contribution to the development and popularisation of Armenian classical music.

The Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (1885–1954) became known as Baal HaSulam (‘Owner of the Ladder’) for his Sulam (‘ladder’) commentary on the Kabbalist Book of Zohar. He dedicated his life to the interpretation and dissemination of ideas found in the Kabbalah, the Jewish teachings intended to explain the relationship between God the infinite, and the mortal and finite universe: in other words, the roots and purpose of existence.

Dr Tanya Ekanayaka is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning Sri Lankan-British concert composer-pianist. Although trained as a pianist, her compositional skills are the result of a purely intuitive and natural development. Influenced by her multifaceted background, multilingualism, ambidexterity and partial colour synaesthesia her works which she describes as ‘deeply autobiographical’ and which evolve when she is at the piano (and at times in her dreams), have not been scored in any form but remain precisely frozen in her memory once evolved. Consistent with her interdisciplinary background, she holds a doctorate for interdisciplinary research involving Linguistics and Musicology from The University of Edinburgh, where she has also been engaged part time in academic teaching since 2007, as well as advanced academic and professional qualifications in Music Performance, Linguistics and Literature.

Piano is Philip Glass’ primary instrument (he also studied violin and flute); he composes at the keyboard. With its seemingly contradictory elements of lyricism and percussiveness, it is in some ways the ideal medium for Glass’ musical language. With its deep roots in tradition (spanning the Classical, Romantic and Modern eras), the instrument embodies the composer’s desire to merge new ideas with classic forms. It is perhaps via piano (and, by extension, keyboard) that performers and listeners can make the most direct and personal contact with Glass’ musical genius.

Silvestrov is considered one of the leading representatives of the “Kiev avant-garde”, which came to public attention around 1960 and was violently criticized by the proponents of the conservative Soviet musical aesthetic. In the 1960s and 1970s his music was hardly played in his native city; premieres, if given at all, were heard only in Russia, primarily in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), or in the West. His Spectrums for chamber orchestra, for example, was premiered to spectacular acclaim by the Leningrad Philharmonic under the baton of Igor Blashkov in 1965. In 1968 the same conductor gave the premiere of the Second Symphony.

Stepanian trained in Moscow, at the Gnessin Music College, from 1923–26, where his fellow pupils included Aram Khachaturian (1903–1978). He subsequently joined the composition class of Vladimir Shcherbachov at the State Conservatory in Leningrad (St Petersburg). Stepanian began teaching at the State Conservatory in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan; and by the late 1930s he was the chairman of the organising committee of the Armenian Union of Composers. He became increasingly interested in the folk music of his own country, and undertook a number of expeditions to collect musical samples from around Armenia. ‘I fell in love with Armenian folk music,’ he explained, ‘as one loves one’s mother, one’s friend or one’s beloved. In it I heard the voice of the heart and soul of my native country, the echoes of historical storms, sorrows, joys and hopes, anger and dreams of my people. Throughout my life I looked upon it as if it were a living being.’ His work in this area was greatly admired, and Khachaturian (with whom he remained close friends) wrote to him in 1953, ‘I think you are the greatest Soviet Armenian composer, whose merits before the native art are really great.’