(TEANECK, NJ) -- On Sunday October 9th at 4:00pm, the Armenian-American pianist Kariné Poghosyan returns to the Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck, NJ, with “Folk Inspirations.” Audience will be lead through the music composed from folk inspirations from four different countries through the carefully selected program. There is a $10 suggested donation.
The program starts in Norway with Edvard Grieg’s Three Selections from Lyric Pieces – To Spring, Minuet: Vanished Days, and Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, followed by Hungary with Franz Liszt’s Three Hungarian Rhapsodies. After intermission, Kariné will give a glimpse of Armenian folklore with Komitas Vardapet’s three selections from Six Dances for Piano. Lastly, the program will go to pagan pre-Soviet Russia with three movements from Stravinsky’s Petrouchka – Danse Russe, Chez Petrouchka, and La Semaine Grasse.
In describing her program, Kariné Poghosyan stated “The Armenian great composer and ethnomusicologist Komitas Vardapet once said, ‘every nation’s greatest creators are its people; go and learn from then.’ This is the concept that has inspired many composers throughout the history of music. And it is this concept that will be the basis of my solo program ‘Folk Inspirations.’” Ms. Poghosyan recently returned from a tour to Vienna, Austria and Yerevan, Armenia, where she garnered rave reviews for her performance of the music of Aram Khachaturian featured on her solo CD, “Khachaturian Original Piano Works and Ballet Transcriptions,” released in April 2015 on the NAXOS label, at the Armenian Embassy (Vienna) and at the Khachaturian House Museum (Armenia).
Reservations are recommended and may be made via email at tix@puffinfoundation.org or by calling 201-836-3499. The Puffin Cultural Forum is located at 20 Puffin Way (off Teaneck Rd.) in Teaneck, New Jersey.
KARINÉ POGHOSYAN, an Armenian pianist, has been praised for her ability to get to the heart of the works she performs. She made her orchestral debut at fourteen playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and her solo Carnegie Hall debut at 23, and has since gone on to win numerous awards as well as performing in some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls. Recently, she helped organize the “Requiem and Resurrection” concert in commemoration of the 95th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide at the Saint Vartan Armenian Cathedral in New York. During the 2014-15 season, Kariné made her Washington D.C. debut, in addition to her Toronto, Canada debut where she gave the Canadian premiere of Alan Hovhanes’s Piano Concerto “Lousadzak.” Other performance highlights included solo recitals in Montgomery, New York, and Richmond, Virginia, as well as performing Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto with the Greater Newburgh (NY) Symphony under the baton of Woomyung Choe. Kariné’s musical studies began in her native Yerevan in Armenia at the School of the Arts No. 1, continuing at Romanos Melikian College and the Komitas State Conservatory. Her teachers in Armenia included Irina Gazarian, Vatche Umr-Shat, and Svetlana Dadyan. After moving to the United States in 1998, she received her BM, summa cum laude, from California State University in Northridge under Françoise Regnat, and her MM and D.M.A. degrees at Manhattan School of Music under Arkady Aronov, completing her D.M.A. in a record-breaking two years with a thesis on Aram Khachaturian’s works for piano. She is currently based in New York, where she teaches at Manhattan School of Music.
“She [Kariné] immersed herself in the piano music of Aram Khachaturian to such an extent that her performances have elevated the music to a higher sphere. I know this for certain as I have played many of these pieces and found details of inflection, rhythm, and technical prowess that I had not imagined the music possessed. This is an important debut recording and it brings to us in Kariné Poghosyan’s work, a pianist that we should hear as soon as possible in recital or on disc. Khachaturian would be excited to hear his colorful works played with such idiomatic styling. This is Khachaturian playing that will not be rivaled!” — David Dubal, revered piano authority, author, and radio host.
Photo by Jeffrey Langford
