The professors of the State Conservatory named after Komitas also take an active participation in the Armenian cultural life. Many of them along with the teaching activities are involved in overseas tours. The guest of “Aravot” is the pianist and professor of the Conservatory, Anahit Nersisyan, who had recently returned from another concert tour. This year, under the festival of “The World Conservatories” held in St. Petersburg, the artist gave concerts in the cities of Poland and Germany, gave master classes conducted and acted as a Chairman of the Examination Committee at the State Academy of Music in Belorussia.
During the interview, the pianist highlighted the concerts in Armenia, noting that local and foreign performances were dedicated to the centenary of the genocide. She singled out the concerts dedicated to the 95-birth anniversary of Alexander Harutyunyan, the 175-birth anniversary of Tchaikovsky, and 330-birth anniversaries of Bach and Handel. The professor, talking about the recent concert tours, said, “As soloist, I participated in the events organized in Kazakhstan cities of Aktau, Aktobe and Atyrau, dedicated to the 330th anniversary of Bach, in addition to the works of Bach, she also played the works of Komitas, Khachaturian, Babajanyan, Mirzoyan, Harutyunyan, as well as well-known Kazakh composer Zhubanova. Later, again on the occasion of Bach’s jubilee, she was invited to Vilnius, where I performed the interpretation of Bach’s Concerto for Two Pianos (do minor BWV 1060) with the Latvian State Chamber Orchestra conducted by Chepayte and my colleague Mūza Rubackytė.”
Being familiar with activities of the pianist, we asked why the works of Bach always dominant in her solo concerts. The pianist, partially agreeing, just said that she won the first prize at the International Competition named after Bach in Leipzig in 1980. Then, listing all the distinguished students of the Armenian Piano School one by one: Professor of the Yerevan Conservatory, Georgi Sarajyan, Robert Andreasyan, Kathy Malkhasyan, Anna Ambakumyan, Villy Sargsyan and others, and assured that even today the Conservatory’s Piano Chair, on behalf of the teaching staff, is really in good hands. As a proof, she said that the student pianists won awards not only in local but also foreign competitions. We will also state that the laureates of international competitions Irina Ghazaryan, Ada Minasyan, Hasmik Antonyan and others took lessons from the professor.
We asked our interlocutor whether it is true that in the fall, under the “World Conservatories” festival held in St. Petersburg, which was also attended by professors from abroad music universities, the Azerbaijani audience have left the hall after her playing, Anahit Nersisyan explained, ‘The concert consisted of two parts, the first part included the play of my foreign universities’ colleagues and my play, and the second part was devoted to mugam. The officials were sitting in the hall in a visible place, I cannot tell in words, but after my play, I noticed that two people not only failed to join the applauding, moreover, they took a kind of posture. Later, I found out that they are ambassadors of Turkey and Azerbaijan to Russia.” Anahit Nersisyan added, “Incidentally, the same ambassadors witness how before the concert ends, the audience tired of hearing mugam left the hall. One of them was my good friend, Hovhannes Tumanyan’s granddaughter, Surma Tumanyan with her husband.”
Samvel DANIELYAN
In the photo – Anahit Nersisyan (center) with Elena Obraztsova and Michael Harvard (2014) “Aravot” daily
