Entertainment Wire

LONDON, UK ‘Daredevils of Sasun: Poetics of an epic’ (263pp, 2008, Mazda, translated into English by Peter Cowe) is a timely and erudite study of the Armenian epic born of the 7/8th century resistance to Arab occupation. On Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 October its English edition was launched first in London and then in Oxford by its author Professor Azat Yeghiazaryan Director of the Manuk Abeghyan Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia....

NEW YORK, NEW YORK Zankel Hall, the mid-size auditorium at New York’s Carnegie Hall complex, is ideally suited for classical chamber music concerts. On the evening of Saturday January 26, 2008, however, a different sort of group, the Shoghaken Ensemble from Armenia, was spotlighted; it featured eight musicians who played native instruments, sang and danced. It appears that Carnegie Hall Corporation has decided to regularly invite such ethnic groups to showcase their artistic ability in a house designed basically for “serious” music....

LONDON, UK On a cold and rainy November 21 2007 Wednesday evening some 40 people sat in London’s Gulbenkian Hall to listen to and watch Rouben Galichian’s excellent talk and slide show launching his ‘Countries South of the Caucasus in Medieval Maps - Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan’ (220pp, with 82 maps and 24 details mostly in full colour). Spiced with wonderful historical anecdotes, the author’s tales charmed and educated his audience, urging them to join him in an enterprise of enlightening Europeans about Armenia’s history that is revealed through medieval maps of the world....

LONDON, UK At a gathering in London’s Armenian House on Wednesday 9 May 2007 Bob Biderman Managing Editor of Black Apollo Press launched the publication of an English language edition of Gougen Mahari’s (1903-1969) controversial 1966 masterpiece ‘The Burning Orchards’. To describe the event as a publishing phenomenon is no exaggeration. For the first time it makes available to millions of readers an epic novel from of one of the most outstanding 20th century Armenian writers....

NEW YORK, NEW YORK A few weeks ago, on April 14, I was invited to listen to cellist Jian Wang perform Chinese composer Huang Roa’s concerto ‘People Mountain People Sea’ at New York’s Miller theatre. However, the real revelation for me was to hear – during the same concert, cleverly named ‘Pocket Concertos’ – Emma Tahmizian to premiere Sebastian Currier’s Piano Concerto. I knew about Emma, but had not heard her perform....

NEW YORK, NEW YORK Eve Beglarian is one of the most extraordinary and strikingly unique musical voices in New York. Described by The New York Times as a ‘remarkable experimentalist,’ she composes in ways that defy verbal description or explication. The daughter of the late Grant Beglarian, a former Dean at the University of Southern California, Eve has recently become interested in her Armenian roots and began studying and composing music inspired by her heritage....

NEW YORK, NEW YORK Composer Tigran Mansurian is anointed with the chrism of Armenian music. During the past two weeks, New York audiences had the opportunity to hear two local premieres by this distinguished composer: Con Anima for string sextet at Merkin Concert Hall on March 27, and Agnus Dei for clarinet, violin, cello and piano at Weill Auditorium at Carnegie Hall on April 6, 2007. Con Anima, composed for viola and string quintet and commissioned by the Concertante ensemble, is in the form of a modified concerto grosso....

NEW YORK, NEW YORK Sofya Melikyan, a talented and skillful pianist, performed on Sunday, October 15, at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. A native of Yerevan, Melikyan moved to Spain as a teenager, studying initially in Madrid and later in Paris. She is currently getting her Master’s Degree at the Manhattan School of Music, working with the veteran piano teacher Solomon Mikowsky. Her performance on Sunday was her official New York debut....

New York, New York During a single weekend in early August, two very young fellows won over New York music-lovers, while filling Armenian hearts with unbound pride. The pair, both born in Yerevan in 1985, were violinist Sergey Khachatryan, performing at Avery Fisher Hall, and composer Tigran Ayvazyan, who had a composition featured at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Friday, August 4 marked the New York debut of 21-year-old Sergey Khachatryan, who performed a staple of the violin repertoire, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra under the baton of Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä....

NEW YORK, NY The 4th annual “Lionel Galstaun Memorial Concert” took place in the sanctuary of the St. Gregory the Enlightener Armenian Church, Westchester, NY on Sunday afternoon, March 19. Pianist Natalia Kazaryan of Tiflis, Georgia; mezzo soprano Solange Merdinian and violinist Sami Merdinian, both from Argentina, were the featured artists. Mr. Merdinian opened the program with a dignified rendition of Tartini’s Violin Sonata, also known as “The Devil’s Trill” for the fiendishly tricky double-stop shakes in the last movement....