From Our Home to Yours

Описание: From Our Home to Yours
Armenian Genocide Commemoration concert by the Pogossian/Manouelian family
April 23, 2020, 7:00 PM PST

If you enjoyed the concert, please consider supporting these worthy causes:

** Music For Food (in support of food services of the Midnight Mission, Skid Row, Los Angeles)
DONATE HERE https://musicforfood.net/

** COVID-19 Campaign in support of free-lance musicians, by Gabriela Lena Frank’s Creative Academy of Music
DONATE HERE https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/cam...

** UCLA Armenian Music Program - DONATE HERE https://giving.ucla.edu/campaign/dona...

** Lark Musical Society/Dilijan Chamber Music Series, Glendale, CA DONATE HERE https://dilijan.larkmusicalsociety.or...

Program

0:19 Komitas - Oror (voice of Danielle Segen)
4:27 Komitas - Ampel A (Clouds)
7:15 Komitas - Garoun A (Spring)
12:45 J. S. Bach - Air from Orchestral Suite No. 2, BWV 1067
18:15 Ian Krouse - Hov Arek, after Komitas - World Premiere*
21:22 W. A. Mozart - Allegro from String Quartet, K. 421
32:42 Aida Shirazi - Blood Moon - World Premiere*
38:21 Komitas - Al Ayloughs (Red Shawl)
41:42 W. A. Mozart - Adagio from Clarinet Quintet, K. 581
49:14 Komitas - Shogher Jan (Dear Shogher)
53:22 Komitas - Chinar Es (Tall as the Poplar Tree)
1:01:25 Artashes Kartalyan - Lullaby for Patil - World Premiere*

*for program notes, please scroll down

Performers

Anoush Pogossian, clarinet
Varty Manouelian and Movses Pogossian, violins
Cara Pogossian, viola
Edvard Pogossian, cello

For more performances, please visit the Pogossian Family Youtube Channel:

   / @pogossianfamily4079  

Credits and Thanks

Sergey Parfenov, recording engineer
Justus Schlichting, editor
Danielle Segen, mezzo-soprano
Thomas Segen, piano
Amb. Armen Baibourtian, PhD., Consul General of Armenia
Gabriela Lena Frank, composer

Lark Musical Society
Vatsche Barsoumian
Ashot Kartalyan
Irene Baghdasaryan

UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music
Lawrence Aldava
Hasmik Baghdasaryan
Luis Henao
Valentina Martinez
Ava Sadripour

*Composers' notes

Ian Krouse - Hov Arek, after Komitas

Of all the folksongs that Komitas collected and arranged Hov arek must have held a special appeal for him, for he chose to include a haunting a cappella version of it for his 1912 Paris recording.
As I prepared to create my own version I stayed away from the many arrangements of this song that one may find, choosing instead to listen to Komitas’s own performance (which I listened to countless times), along with renditions of his own arrangement with a simple, characteristically understated piano accompaniment.
I decided to keep my version as simple as possible, and not to stray too far from Komitas’ arrangement. My Hov Arek is dedicated to the Pogossian family with great admiration and affection. It could not have been made without the help of Vatsche Barsoumian.

Aida Shirazi - Blood Moon

“…And the dark night was deserted, like the vast infinite;
And, with the lonely and bloody moon,
Like a myriad motionless marble statues,
All the dead bodies of our earth arose to pray for one another.”

This is the closing paragraph of the Prayer by the Armenian poet, Siamanto. Once I read Prayer, I found myself fascinated with the beauty and allure that Siamanto has created through the incredibly dark, violent, and melancholic imagery. A miniature for clarinet and string quartet, Blood Moon is my musical answer to Prayer, where the glissandi in the strings rise from a dark and cloudy texture, while the clarinet soars from and disappears into its lowest register, and call others to rise and move.

I took advantage of the musical evocativeness of the Armenian folk song, Loosin Yelav (The Moon Has Risen) and the literal connection of its text to Siamanto’s poem, and quoted short fragments of the song towards the end of Blood Moon.

Artashes Kartalyan - Lullaby for Patil

The “Lullaby for Patil” is dedicated to my newborn granddaughter. True to its name, the lullaby moves slowly and softly, with a delicate opening by the first violin introducing the work. The clarinet then carries the main theme—a tranquil yet soothing melody with a sweet touch of Armenian color. The first violin later joins with the counter theme. The middle section is more lively, in pursuit of richer harmonic colors. Indeed the emotional climax at the end of the middle section marks the return of the first theme with violin one and the counter theme with the clarinet in the high register. The coda finally calms it all down, and the child is fast asleep.