Gayane khachaturian biography of william
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Khachaturian, Aram
The work that truly launched Khachaturian’s international reputation had a far from auspicious start. Composed in 1936, his Piano Concerto was an ambitious attempt to blend the trans-Caucasian folk music of his hometown, Tiflis (today the Georgian capital, and known as Tbilisi), with the dramatic virtuosity of a Liszt concerto.
For its first public outing the soloist was Lev Oborin, winner of the first Warsaw International Chopin Piano Competition of 1927. However, the performance was held on an open-air scen in Sokolniki, a Moscow ‘park of culture and leisure’.
Oborin had to play on an upright, and Khachaturian’s ambitious orchestral score, including within its soulful slow movement a part for flexatone (a ‘singing’ percussive instrument also used by Arnold Schoenberg), was entrusted to an ad hoc group of musicians of varying skill, who had just one rehearsal before the performance on 12 July 1937.
During the performance, a strong wind blew away the spe
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A Life of Music
Maral was a vibrant, outgoing young woman who endeared herself to everyone she met.
By the time Maral Ani Avakian was nine years old, she could play Aram Khachaturian’s ballet suite “Gayane” by ear. Recognized very early in life as a talented musician, music would come to play a fundamental role in her life, which was prematurely cut short in 2006. Her love for music continued after her passing through an AGBU scholarship fund established in her name to help Armenian students of music reach their potential.
Maral was raised in a household filled with music. After graduating from the AGBU Tarouhi Hagopian School for Girls in Lebanon and the AGBU Melkonian Educational Institute in Cyprus, Maral’s mother, Vartouhi Sarkissian, was a student at the Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music in Beirut where she focused on singing. After moving to the United States, she instilled her own love of music in her daughters, first in Maral— born in Detroit in 1957—and
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