Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Music opens Armenian soul, History

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Music opens Armenian soul, History

    Music opens Armenian soul, history

    Dilijan chamber group plays heartfelt selections

    Los Angeles Daily News
    4/09/2006

    By Alex Dobuzinskis, Staff writer

    GLENDALE - Performing the classics to open a window into the Armenian
    soul, the directors of the fledgling Dilijan chamber music series have
    chosen composers who offer turbulent life stories.

    They include an Armenian priest and composer who ended up in an insane
    asylum after being deported by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, and a
    Russian-trained composer of Armenian descent who was sanctioned by the
    Soviet "music police" for creating pieces deemed too abstract.

    The Dilijan series has also sought to present the work of emerging
    composers, especially those of Armenian descent.

    After Armenia's long history of being ruled by the Ottoman Empire and
    then the Soviet Union, the nation's composers are finally coming into
    their own, said Vatsche Barsoumian, a Glendale-based creator of the
    Dilijan series. And as Armenian composers create new music, the series
    is bringing their work to Southern California audiences.

    "Now that (Armenia is) relatively independent," Barsoumian said, "we are
    trying to find out and experiment with sound that is closest to our
    heart and experiences as Armenians, without any impediments."

    Dilijan, in its inaugural season, brings together small groups of
    musicians to play classical music, using the Colborn School of Music in
    downtown Los Angeles as a venue and operating out of the Glendale office
    of the nonprofit Lark Musical Society.

    The series is not dedicated only to compositions by Armenians. It has
    already featured the work of classical music heavyweights Josef Haydn,
    Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms.

    And many of the 26 professional musicians involved in the project are
    also not of Armenian descent. Phil O'Connor, 33, who plays clarinet and
    saxophone, said he has enjoyed being part of the series.

    "In the chamber music setting, because it's less people involved, you
    have more ability for everyone to interject their opinion and ... you
    can develop a group interpretation much more readily than you would in a
    symphony," O'Connor said.

    Artistic director Movses Pogossian, 39, of Montrose is a violinist who
    made his American debut in 1990 as a soloist with the Boston Pops.

    A native of Armenia who taught music at universities in Pittsburgh,
    Bowling Green and Detroit, he is impressed by Los Angeles musicians who
    are just as comfortable playing at a movie studio as a symphony hall.

    "Musically it's the busiest city in America," Pogossian said. "I think
    it has the greatest number of great musicians in the country."

    On April 21, in a show called "Armenian Genocide Commemoration,"
    Pogossian and five other musicians will perform the last installment of
    the Dilijan series. The show comes a few days before the date when
    Armenians mark the 1915 deportations and killings in the Ottoman Empire
    that claimed the lives of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians.

    One of the pieces chosen for the evening is a work by the Armenian
    priest and composer Komitas. He was deported by the Ottoman Turks in
    1915 and narrowly escaped death, but the experience put him in an insane
    asylum and he died a few years later.

    The April 21 show will also feature work by the living Armenian composer
    Tigran Mansurian, and the late French composer Olivier Messiaen's
    "Quartet for the End of Time," which was written in a German prison camp
    during World War II.

    "Instead of bringing out the dark and tragic in the piece, basically
    Messiaen is singing the glory to God and it's an incredibly positive and
    life-affirming piece," Pogossian said.

    On Oct. 20, the series presented a unique show called "Condemned by
    Stalin," highlighting three Soviet composers who fell out of favor with
    dictator Joseph Stalin. They include Aram Khatchaturian, a
    Russian-trained composer of Armenian descent.

    "They thought that he was trying to do some advanced modernistic
    styles," Barsoumian said.

    The other two composers were Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich.

    "Their music was going to be checked by people who acted like policemen,
    music policemen," Barsoumian said.

    For more information on the Dilijan chamber music series, go to
    www.dilijan.larkmusicalsociety.com.


    Contact: [email protected], (818) 546-3304

    http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_36897 87

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Working...
X