Local composer Dan Yessian has been a longtime fan of composer Burt Bacharach. Yessian is CEO of Yessian Music, which develops commercial and production sounds for major corporations around the world.
When Yessian learned that a Bacharach piano, a Steinway baby grand, was up for auction in 2005, he cast the winning bid, and the instrument came to Yessian’s Milford home from Bacharach’s California residence to be established as an important element of creativity.
On the piano that saw the development of the Bacharach hit song “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” Yessian wrote the music for the symphony An Armenian Trilogy that marks the anniversary of the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman Empire during the World War I era.
In 2017, Yessian traveled to Armenia to work on the film that describes his own life.
The Yessian symphony and film will be televised at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 12, on Detroit Public Television hosted by Fred Nahhat. Two Jewish film production assistants, Ohad Wilner and Stewart Shevin, were important in making the film.
“My music, whether it’s for commercials or television, has been inspired by Bacharach music, so much so that people would say there’s a tinge of a Bacharach style in what you’re doing,” Yessian said.
“Burt’s music, apparently, had seeped into my consciousness. When I started writing the symphony in 2014 at the suggestion of a priest, I thought the piano had a big part in writing it.”
Yessian reveals that he thinks about the history of the piano.
“I often have to pinch myself knowing that this piano came from Burt’s home in New York originally and then followed him throughout his marriage to Angie Dickinson,” Yessian said. “I have been motivated by the catalog of Burt’s music.”