Artur Akshelyan
Armenia

“Let me be a Scarlet Flame…” was composed in 2021 and will received its World Premiere on July 1, 2022. It is connected to Beethoven’s Sonata no. 15 in D Major, Op. 28 “Pastoral”.

The piece is written “In memory of the victims of the 2020 Artsakhian war”

Composer Artur Akshelyan was born in Yerevan (Armenia) in 1984. He began his first composition classes with V. Ajemyan at the Yerevan State Conservatory. Since 2008 he moved to Switzerland where he studied composition with Michael Jarrell and Luis Naon at the Haute Ecole de Musique of Geneva later on followed by post graduate classes at Boston University in US.

His works have been commissioned from ensembles and institutions such as the Radio France,“Orpheus Competition”(Switzerland), Dilijan Chamber Music Series (USA), Festival Flagey (Brussels), Foundation Minkoff (Geneva), Ensemble Pre-Art (Zurich) and others.
His compositions have received various prizes in international competitions such as the Basel Composition Competition 2021, Geneva Competition, NEM young composers forum (Canada), Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Amsterdam), Jurgenson Competition (Moscow), Pre-Art (Zurich) and other awards.

Recent commissions include a new work for voice and string quartet programmed for the Dilijan Music Concert Series 2022/23 season in USA; a new piece for “Ensemble Maja” as part of Festival Presence in Paris 2023. Among his collaborators of different festivals and workshops are the Ensemble Modern Lemanic (Neuchatel), Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ardittie Quartet, Ensemble Divertimento (Milan) etc. Currently he teaches at the Yerevan State Conservatory and American University of Armenia, as a conductor works with the “Ensemble Assonance” in Yerevan.

Composer’s Note:

My new piano piece is associated with “Pastoral Sonata” Of Beethoven, its melancholy and calm nature. The repeated D note-pedal tone at the very beginning of pastoral is incorporated into spatial textures and ad libitum phrases. The melodic motif of exposition is transformed into spatial material including the harmonic palette and some echoing spots. The pulse of the music intends to manipulate "timeless flow” and intensity growing through own gravitation. Scarlet flame, here embodies an abstract complex of flower leaves and transformations, a line borrowed from the poetry of Stanley Braithwaite. Hence the grace notes or quasi ornamental passages tend to create images of metamorphosis, ideas interwoven with folk-like elements and such imitations. The focus around the notes D and A in certain passages or DAE/DADE at the ending are associated with “Dadivank” (early Armenian medieval monastery).