The centennial of American composer Alan Hovhaness' birth will be celebrated in a concert of his works to be presented by Other Minds on Sunday, 13 March 2011 4pm at First Congregational Church in Berkeley, CA.

Charles Amirkhanian, Executive and Artistic Director of the innovative new music champion Other Minds, has invited pianist Sahan Arzruni to play a recital of Hovhaness' works which will include two world premieres. "Alan Hovhaness is one composer whose quality and range of expression are barely realized, and whose voice deserves broader recognition," says Mr. Amirkhanian. "We can't think of a better way to shed light on this long-lived and prolific maverick than to present an afternoon with one of Hovhaness' greatest interpreters, ?ahan Arzruni." First Congregational Church is located at 2345 Channing Way in Berkeley. Tickets ($20/$50) are available

Alan Hovhaness (originally Alan Vaness Chakmakjian, 1911-2000) was born to a Scottish mother and an Armenian father in Somerville, Massachusetts. He attended Tufts University (where his father was a professor of chemistry) and the New England Conservatory. From the outset he forged his own artistic path, rejecting the trend of the times toward serialism and developing a compositional language increasingly influenced by his studies of mysticism and of Armenian and other world cultures. Though he changed his name to Hovhaness in the 1930s, he eventually came so deeply to embrace his Armenian heritage that he destroyed most of the compositions from that period of his life, when he had been dubbed "the American Sibelius." In the course of his long life he produced over 60 symphonies, many operas and chamber works, and a great body of choral music. As Mr.Arzruni has noted in the liner notes for a recording of Hovhaness' music, "...Alan Hovhaness rejects the materialistic values of the Machine Age to explore the transcendental realm, using music as a link between the physical world and a metaphysical cosmos.

In his search for higher insight, Hovhaness takes the cultures of non-Western people as his point of departure, while employing the tools of Western music as his frame of reference...His art is simple, not simplistic; artless but artistic; unique yet universal; appealing as well as enduring."

Pianist Sahan Arzruni (sha-HAN ardz-rou-NEE) is known not only as a recitalist and chamber musician but as a composer, ethnomusicologist, lecturer, writer, recording artist, broadcast personality, producer and impresario. He continuously researches the musical roots of his Armenian heritage. He has recorded and produced anthologies of Armenian music, delivered papers and organized symposia at such institutions as Harvard, Columbia and the University of Michigan, and contributed articles to academic journals, to The New Grove Dictionary, and to the Dictionary of. He has recorded for New World Records, CRI, the Middle Ages Musical Heritage Society, Hearts of Space, Philips, Varèse- Sarabande, Good Music, Positively Armenian and Kalan Music. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School and lives in New York City.

Founded in 1992, Other Minds Inc. is a leading proponent for new and experimental music in all its forms, bringing together artists and audiences of diverse traditions, generations and cultural backgrounds. By fostering cross-cultural exchange and creative dialogue, and by encouraging exploration of areas in new music seldom touched upon by mainstream music institutions, OM is committed to expanding and re shaping the definition of what constitutes "serious music." From festival concerts, film screenings, and the commissioning of new works, to producing and releasing CDs, to archival preservation of thousands of concerts and composer interviews (which OM streams free of charge on the internet at www.radiOM.org), OM has become one of the world's major conservators of new music's ecology.

13 March 2011 Concert Repertoire

Hovhaness:

Achtamar (1947) 

Lake of Van Sonata (1946, rev. 1959)

Mystic Flute (1937)

Pastoral No.1 (1952)  

Yenovk (1946, rev. 1951 World Premiere) 

Laona (1956, World Premiere) 

Visionary Landscapes (1967)

Suite (1954, rev. 1967)

Two Ghazals (1933, rev. 1966)

Macedonian Mountain Dance (1937) 

Komitas:

Shoror of Mush (1906-1916)

For more information about Other Minds, call 831-620-1332.

Links

www.iSoloPiano.com

www.otherminds.org

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