Origins

In a celebration of his heritage, pianist Jean-Paul Gasparian’s new solo album is dedicated entirely to Armenian music. The program features works by Komitas, Aram Khachaturian, and Arno Babajanian, as well as two pieces composed by his father Gérard Gasparian inspired by the renowned Armenian poet Sayat-Nova. A third selection by Babajanian is also based on a song by Sayat-Nova, which the ashugh (singer-poet) would have performed on his kamanech (a bowed string instrument). Folk songs, melodies, rhythms, and dances of the Armenian people are the themes which connect the repertoire on the program. “With this program spanning nearly a century, from Komitas’s Dances written in the mid-1900s to pieces by my father Gérard Gasparian, composed in the late 1980s, I aimed to highlight both the remarkable diversity of this repertoire and its profound unity,” writes Jean-Paul Gasparian.