The Armenian State Symphony Orchestra to Open 16th Concert Season With the “ARMENIA” International Music Festival

The annual “Armenia” International Music Festival will mark the start of the 16th concert season of the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra on 29th September 2021, and will last until 29th October. The month-long festival will comprise a total of 17 concerts, including 12 symphony orchestra concert performances and five chamber concerts.

The “ARMENIA” International Music Festival was established in 2017 by the joint efforts of Sergey Smbatyan, the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, and Konstantin Ishkhanov, the President of the European Foundation for Support of Culture(EUFSC).

The several years of the festival’s history have earned it a reputation asa celebrated and awaited annual music event, with concerts featuring world-renowned artists whose performances might otherwise be less affordable or available in famous music halls around the world to many enthusiasts of classical music.

In the framework of the “ARMENIA” International Music Festival, many new talents have the opportunity to perform before larger audiences alongside distinguished soloists, opening tothem new paths of excellence.

The concerts of the festival will be performed by the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra and the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia. The large repertoire of the festival concerts will feature works by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Grieg, Bizet and Saryan, as well as those by Alexey Shor, resident composer for the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra. The concerts will be performed by acclaimed artists including violinists Gil Shaham, Daniel Lozakovich, Fumiaki Miura, Sergey Dogadin and Marc Bouchkov, pianists Mikhail Pletnev andYeol Eum Son and cellists Steven Isserlis andNarek Hakhnazaryan, as well as others, and led by conductors Sergey Smbatyan, Dmitri Yablonsky, Marius Stravinsky, Felix Korobov, Alan Chircop, Conrad van Alphen and Gianluca Marcianò.

The concerts will be held at the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concerts Complex and the National Centre of Chamber Music.

The September 29 opening concert will featuresoloist Marc Bouchkov and the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra performing Sergei Prokofiev’s March from “The Love for Three Oranges” opera and his Violin Concerto No.1, and “Pictures at an Exhibition” by Modest Mussorgsky, arranged for the orchestra by Maurice Ravel.

The “ARMENIA” International Music Festival is presented with the support of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Republic of Armenia.