Famous composer Ara Gevorgyan cooperated with Ian Gillan, a soloist of legendary Deep Purple, on the new project. The star offered Ara Gevorgyan to impart Armenian motifs to one of his most famous pieces, Holy Water, and now Holly Water with Armenian features is ready and Arshak Sahakyan plays the duduk.
The whole revenue from sales will be used for reconstruction of no. 6 music school in Gyumri.
Deep Purple offered a big royalty to the Armenian composer, however, as Mr. Grigoryan stated during a conversation with www.aravot.am, he refused the money, since he has been friends with Gillan for 20 years and he is perceived as a friend of our country. “I refused the royalty, given the rather long friendship, also the fact that they have done considerable work on the occasion of commemorating the victims of the earthquake and in the disaster area, they have built a music school, they support the school financially. Ian Gillan and his friends from most famous music bands in the world perform a piece that is called Smoke on the Water, the whole royalty of which has been directed to the disaster area and the same project has been refreshed today, in 20 years, in the spirit of modernity and is sold again and they take care of the Gyumri school expenses with that money,” said Ara Gevorgyan.
We asked him to tell how he had first met Ian Gillan. “It was year 1989, when he came to Armenia with his music band after the earthquake. I wanted to meet him at the airport, but I didn’t think that I would be with him for a whole week and even play on the same stage during his concert. By the way, Arsen Grigoryan and I attached to Ian Gillan’s song The Black Dark Clouds piece and actually performed on the stage together,” remembered the composer.
We asked Ara Gevorgyan whether, in his opinion, the representatives of the Armenian music world were excited about his cooperation with Gillan or they envied or were jealous. “I go about my favorite business, but there will be such people… more specifically, there is one person who says that he doesn’t like my music, he is a famous man, I just don’t even want to name him….”
Gohar Hakobyan
