TALENTED MOSCOW-BASED MUSICIAN SONA ARSHAKIAN GIVES FIRST SOLO CONCERT
IN YEREVAN

YEREVAN, MAY 8, NOYAN TAPAN. The 21-year-old Sona Arshakian from Moscow
gave her first important and responsible concert at Yerevan’s Chamber
Music House. The program of the first solo concert of the Moscow State
Conservatory student was a complex and rich one. On that evening the
young pianist performed works of almost all European composers:
Scarlatti, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann and Rakhmaninov.

According to Sona, the program was complex but she was well-prepared,
and she expressed a hope that the audience will like her performance.
"My professor is very strict and demanding. We have prepared well for
the concert but the program was difficult," she said.

"I starting playing the piano quite unexpectedly. In our family, I am
the first to practice music, for which I am obliged to a childhood
friend. Following her suit, I started to attend a music school and soon
I realized that I was to play and become a famous pianist," Sona
recalls. Shortly afterwards the gifted girl continued her education at
Yerevan music school after P. Tchaykowsky, and three years later she
left for Moscow to study in Moscow, a city famous for its music
traditions.

The talented and hard-working girl not only studied music in a foreign
city but also improved her music skills and graduated from the
Tchaykowsky music shools with an honors diploma. With the same success
Sona Arshakian entered the Moscow State Conservatory, studying in the
class of famous Professor Yuri Hayrapetian of Armenian descent. "At his
classes, I began to perceive music differently. It is a different
feeling that I can express only on the keyboard of a piano. This
perception is peculiar to my world, in which nothing but nature and
music exists: they are as much in harmony as the air and breath," Sona
said.

In response to the question about why there are no works of Armenian
composers in her concert program, Sona replied that it is a matter of
time, and the next time she will certainly perform works of Armenian
authors.

In addition to playing the piano, Sona likes to sing, paint and dance.
"I like Armenian folk songs above all and I sing them with pleasure. I
often sing in church," she noted.

Sona’s greatest wish to become a great and well-known pianist, for
which she stidies hard. After this solo concert, the young pianist will
give a performance in Moscow. She plans to participate in an
international competition of pianists in Geneva in October.

In 2006 Sona took part in the Citta di Sulmona competition in Italy and
won the second prize, while at another international contest of
pianists in Italy in 2007 she was awarded the 3rd prize and the Special
Prize.