The Gurdjieff Ensemble from Armenia - Komitas and Gurdjieff

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  • date:20 Oct 2017 - 26 Jun 2018
  • area:Augsburg, Prague, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Osnabruck, Berlin
  • style(s):Armenian
  • status:published tour
  • continents:Europe / Russia
  • tour posted by:The Gurdjieff Ensemble

Confirmed Dates

October 20, 2017 Augsburg/ Parktheater
March 27,2018 Prague/ St.Simon and Juda Church
March 29, 2018 Hamburg / Elbphilharmonie
June 22, 2018 Amsterdam
June 24, 2018 Osnabruck/ Morgenland Festival
June 26, 2018 Boulez Hall/ Berlin

Offered Dates

October 2017
March 2018
June 2018

Links

The Gurdjieff Ensemble was founded by Levon Eskenian to play ‘ethnographically authentic’ arrangements of the G.I. Gurdjieff/Thomas de Hartmann piano music, the ensemble consists of leading musicians playing Armenian and Middle Eastern authentic instruments. Their debut album on ECM records, Music of G.I. Gurdjieff, was widely acclaimed, and won prestigious awards including the Edison Award.

Gurdjieff, who is considered to be one of the most influential spiritual leaders of the 20th century, was born in Armenia in the late 19th century, created the approach of the Harmonious Development of Man in the course of his journeys throughout the world . His extraordinary musical repertoire was based on the music he heard while traveling in Armenia, the Caucasus, the Middle East and many parts of the Central Asia, India and North Africa, where he witnessed a myriad of folk and spiritual music, rituals and dance traditions. The pieces that Eskenian has collected have their roots in Armenian, Greek, Arabic, Assyrian, Kurdish, Persian and Caucasian folk and spiritual music, and the rearrangements were created with an eye towards preserving their authenticity.

since 2011 the ensemble has been touring around the world at major festival and venues such as the Holland Festival in the Netherlands, the Wege Durch Das Land, the Lux Aeterna of the Elbphilharmonie, the Rudolstadt and the Morgenland festivals in Germany, the Nostalgia Festival in Poland; the Imago Dei in Austria; The Budapest Spring Festival ,the Stansern Musiktage in Switzerland; the Fiestival in Belgium; and concerts at famous venues such as the Bozar Center For Fine Arts in Brussels; the Frari Church in Venice; the Pushkin State Museum in Moscow, the Albert hall in Canberra, Australia; the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam; the Sala Radio in Bucharest; the Gulbenkian hall in Lisbon, the Sala Sao Paulo in Brazil ;Capilla Del Buen Pastor in Cordoba, Argentina; the AUB in Lebanon; the Komitas hall in Yerevan and others.

Now Eskenian and his musicians turn their attention to the music of Komitas Vardapet (1869-1935). Composer, ethnomusicologist, arranger, singer and priest, Komitas is popularly held to be the founder of contemporary music in Armenia, and in his work as a collector he explored the connections that uniquely bind together Armenian sacred and secular music. With Eskenian’s special focus on folk instrumentation, antropological and ethnomusicological researches and inspired arrangements the Ensemble illuminates the deep roots of Komitas’s compositions in this programme recorded in Lugano and released in autumn 2015. Eskenian and the Gurdjieff Ensemble will continue touring with their music of Georges I.Gurdjieff programme and starting from the second season of 2016 also with their new Komitas programme.

The Gurdjieff Ensemble

Levon Eskenian – arranger, artistic director/ Emmanuel Hovhannisyan – duduk, zourna, pku/ Avag Margaryan – blul , zourna/ Armen Ayvazyan – kamancha/ Aram Nikoghosyan – oud/ Meri Vardanyan – kanon/ Vladimir Papikyan – santur, voice/ Davit Avagyan – tar,saz/ Mesrop Khalatyan – dap/dhol/ Norayr Gapoyan – duduk/ Eduard Harutyunyan -tmbouk, cymbals, bell


http://gurdjieffensemble.com