ELITE MUSICIANS UNITE FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MEMORIAL CONCERT IN GLENDALE

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune
March 24 2015

By Robert D. Thomas, The San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Three well-known local artists will make their first appearance as the
Glendale Trio on March 28 at First Baptist Church of Glendale as part
of the Glendale Philharmonic’s fifth annual Positive Motions series.

Violinist Roberto Cani, the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra concertmaster,
will join pianist Armen Guzelimian and cellist Ruslan Biryukov, the
series’ curator, in performances of Arno Babajanian’s Piano Trio in
F-sharp minor and Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor.

The concert is being performed in memory of Armenian genocide victims
as the 100th anniversary of the start of the genocide is April 24.

Portions of the proceeds will be donated to the Armenian General
Benevolent Union and the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church.

Guzelimian is well known for his work as a piano virtuoso, chamber
musician, vocal coach and teacher. He appears often in local piano
series, has played many times in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green
Umbrella series, and has performed around the world.

“Ruslan asked me last fall how I would like to join with Roberto and
him for a recital,” says Guzelimian, whose brother, Ira, is provost
and dean at The Juilliard School in New York City. “I, of course, had
heard Roberto’s work with the L.A. Opera Orchestra and was delighted,
particularly because of the pieces chosen and the fact that it would
be near the centennial of the start of the Armenian genocide.”

The two pieces were written eight years apart, 1944 for the
Shostakovich, 1952 for the Babajanian. “Both men were brilliant
pianists,” explains Guzelimian. “They each liked to employ folk music
in their pieces, both received the People’s Artist of the Soviet
Union award, and both were influenced by Prokofiev’s music.

“Babajanian’s piece is a masterpiece of the piano trio literature,”
continues Guzelimian. “He wrote in a grand romantic style, similar
to Rachmaninoff. On the other hand, Shostakovich employed fascinating
sound effects to create eerie moods in his trio.”

For Guzelimian and people of his generation, the Armenian genocide
resonates deeply in their psyche and that’s particularly true in
Glendale, which has a sizable population of people with Armenian
heritage.

The Armenian genocide rivals the Holocaust of World War II for its
terror. In 1915 the Ottoman government began a systematic destruction
of its Armenian community that resulted, according to most accounts,
in more than 1.5 million people having perished. Present-day Turkey
denies these allegations, in part because it claims no relationship
to the Ottoman Empire, except for geography.

“My maternal grandmother was left an orphan by the genocide,” recalls
Guzelimian. “She managed to escape and went first to Greece and then
to Egypt. She had nothing — not even a birth certificate. When she
died, we didn’t know for sure how old she was.”

Like Jews with younger generations and the Holocaust, Armenians
struggle to keep the memory of the genocide alive in everyone, not
just those with Armenian heritage.

“The feelings are different for those of us in the first and second
generation,” he acknowledges. “The genocide is taught as historical
fact now and there are, of course, plenty of pictures, chronicles and
world news reports from the periods (1915-1918 and 1920-1923). But
the failure of Turkey to acknowledge the truth of what happened is
still a wound.”

Although the concert’s dedication is significant, Guzelimian cautions,
“I don’t want people to be scared away from this concert thinking it
will be a sad, somber occasion. This is great music that would stand
on its own.”

Robert D. Thomas is a freelance music writer.