Insider Interview with pianist Sahan Arzruni

Armenian-American pianist Sahan Azruni is in the midst of recording a complete history of piano music from his homeland. The latest edition, “By Women,” (rel. July 26, 2024 by Armenian General Benevolent Union) features music by 8 different women, including 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Kouyoumdjian, and nearly all works are world premiere recordings. We spoke to him about the forthcoming album, his early inspirations, working as a sidekick to Victor Borge, and more.  

What was it about the piano that first attracted you to play it, and what made you want to pursue a career in piano?  

I started playing the piano at the age of four at the encouragement of my maternal aunt who was a pianist and a composer.  When she discovered a superior gift in my “doodling,” she took me, at the age of six, to her Austrian teacher at the Istanbul Municipal Conservatory. He agreed to work with me as long as my aunt supervised my practicing. I made my first public appearance before I was five years old. 

It was not practical to make a living playing or teaching the piano in Istanbul. Thus, I entered Robert College to study chemistry. Unfortunately, I failed in English (all classes were taught in English) and I was let go. I then applied to Juilliard School, was accepted and came to New York in 1964. 

What inspired you to create this album?  

I am in the midst of recording the history of Armenian piano music. This is the fourth album. The sponsors asked me to devote this album to the music of Armenian women composers. Feminism is in, I hear! 

What elements – if any – might a listener identify as sounding like it was written by a woman; or sounding like it was written by someone of Armenian heritage?  

There is nothing special about women composers in general. The music is either good or bad. Whether they are composed by men or women, it’s irrelevant. The idea of women creating music was nothing new for me. My aunt was my first piano teacher. Also, I was a close friend of another Armenian woman composer in Istanbul, Koharik Gazarossian. In the States, I became friends with Louise Talma and Miriam Gideon and recorded many of their works. And now this collection. I have found 38 Armenian women composers so far! 

If you had to pick two pieces or composers to highlight for readers, which would you choose and why?  

Alicia Terzian from Argentina is probably one of the most challenging Armenian woman composer. I have recorded almost all her piano compositions. Her works are mostly multi-media. Another woman composer would be Gayane Chebotaryan -- there is a polished finish to her compositions. They are highly pianistic and effective. 

You worked with Victor Borge for many years. How did you first meet him?

In the sixties when I was attending The Juilliard School of Music, to help students to find jobs there was an office named Placement Bureau. In April 1968, through PB I found out that pianist Leonid Hambro was looking for a student to replace him for a week as a musical sidekick to pianist and comedian Victor Borge. Although several students has applied for the position, I was chosen by Victor Borge to work with. There were only 10 days before a week-long concerts in Hamilton, Ontario. 

 What role did you play on stage? 

The half-hour portion I would be involved in not only included new music for two-pianos but also comedic antics with Borge. Borge and I hit it off right away, not only musically and comedically, but personally as well. Without Hambro’s knowledge Borge kept offering me additional dates. (Borge was paying me only 1/5 of what Hambro was charging.) Eventually, I replaced him as Borge’s stage partner. I was associated with Borge on and off until 1986.

 What did you enjoy about this type of work? 

In many ways, my association with Borge was a positive experience for I was exposed to huge audiences. Furthermore, playing some one hundred concerts a year was an immense exposure. And finally, expanding the idea of traditional recital – presenting just music – into music and talking was a unique approach.

 How did working with Borge for so many years inform your career as a recitalist? 

Working with Borge evolved my musical understanding, developed my relationship with audiences, and freed my artistic abstraction.  

Pianist Şahan Arzruni records works by Armenian Women

View with Images

Pianist Şahan Arzruni’s new album celebrates Armenian women composers spanning 150 years

Album on AGBU/Positively Armenian released July 26, 2024

Includes world premiere recordings by eight composers, including Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Kouyoumdjian

Two of the earliest women composers in the world were Armenian: Sahakdukht and Khosrovidukht in the 8th century. The Armenian pianist Şahan Arzruni has recorded an album celebrating women composers from the region. “By Women: piano works by Armenian women composers” is released on July 26, 2024 on AGBU/Positively Armenian. The album -– almost entirely world premiere recordings – continues Arzruni's exploration of music from his home country, including his 2021 recording of solo piano works by Alan Hovhaness. 

From Lucy (Lusine) Hazarabedian – the first Armenian woman to write specifically for the piano – to 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Kouyoumdjian, the music on "By Women" spans 150 years. Hazarabedian composed “The Nightingale of Armenia” when she was 16 years old, and died tragically young six years later. Kouyoumdjian wrote “I Haven’t the Words” in 2020 during the racial reckoning of George Floyd's murder and subsequent protests. The composer describes the composition as a ‘sonic journal entry’.

The album includes music by Koharik Gazarossian, a Constantinople-born student of Paul Dukas. Gazarossian lived across from the founder of the Armenian National School of Music, Komitas. After Komitas’ exile in the Armenian genocide, Gazarossian copied many of his manuscripts of folk songs and used them as the basis of her own works, including the two preludes on this album. 

Alicia Terzian's “Ode to Vahan” was written for Arzruni on a commission by Mr. & Mrs. Vahakn Hovnanian. The work is based on a liturgical chant created by Khosrovidukht in the 8th century, which continues to be sung in the Armenian Church today.

Contact ClassicalCommunications@gmail.com to request a physical CD or digital copy of this recording.

Pianist Şahan Arzruni

BY WOMEN
piano works by Armenian women composers

Release date: July 26, 2024 | AGBU/Positively Armenian

TRACK LISTING
World premiere recordings (except as noted)

GEGHUNI CHITCHYAN (b. 1929)
Sonatina
[01] Allegro (2:10)
[02] Moderato cantabile (3:54)
[03] Presto (1:56)
[04] Prelude (4:04)

KOHARIK GAZAROSSIAN (1907-1967)
[05] Prelude: "My Child, Your Mother is Dead" * (3:19)
[06] Prelude: "Your Name is Shushan" (2:40)

MARY KOUYOUMDJIAN (b. 1983)
[07] "I Haven't the Words" (3:26)

SIRVART KARAMANUK (1912-2008)
[08] "Dance-Song" (3:43)

SIRVART KAZANDJIAN (1944-2020)
[09] “The Bells of Ani” (5:40)

GAYANE CHEBOTARYAN (1918-1998)
[10] Prelude in E-flat minor (3:56)
[11] Prelude in G minor (1:52)
[12] Prelude in B-flat minor * (2:35)
[13] Prelude in E-flat minor (1:48)
[14] Prelude in B-flat minor (4:18)
[15] Prelude in F-sharp minor (2:48)

ALICIA TERZIAN (b. 1934)
[16] “Ode to Vahan” (9:58)

LUCY HAZARABEDIAN (1863-1882)
[17] “The Nightingale of Armenia” (2:57)

* Previously recorded by Şahan Arzruni in the 1980s

Suggested tracks for classical radio
[1] - [3] Chitchyan: Sonatina
[6] Gazarossian: Prelude
[8] Karamanuk: Dance-Song
[12] [13] [15] Cheboaryan: Preludes
[17] Hazarabedian: The Nightingale of Armenia

Transcentury Media Reviews Sahan Arzruni's "Hovhaness: Selected Piano Compositions"

To composers of the Classical era, the piano (that is, fortepiano) was an instrument allowing greater expressiveness than the harpsichord, or at least expressiveness of a different type. To Beethoven and the early Romantics, the steadily improving piano made possible increasing emotional communication in music, as well as substantial virtuosity, often for its own sake. To Liszt, one of the most-substantial virtuoso players of his era, the piano – which came into essentially its modern form during his lifetime – was an orchestra in miniature. To later composers, the piano took on expanded roles or very different ones, including some (such as “prepared piano”) that changed the instrument’s inherent sound and placed it even more firmly in the percussion realm than it had been before. And to some composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, the piano became, or has become, a newly expressive instrument, even to the point of connecting to realms beyond the musical.

That is how Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) appears to have seen the piano, on the basis of a generous selection of his solo-piano music that was originally released in 2019 but is only now being made available in the United States. Pianist Şahan Arzruni, a longtime friend and colleague of Hovhaness, seems as finely attuned to the underlying mysticism of Hovhaness’ piano works (and, indeed, his works in general) as any performer can be. Arzruni’s extensive familiarity with Hovhaness’ oeuvre, and his personal possession of numerous hand-written manuscripts of Hovhaness’ music, make it possible for him to place the 10 works on this Kalan Music CD firmly within proper context. And Arzruni’s sheer pianistic skill helps him do something that is by no means straightforward in Hovhaness’ music: to make it colorful and convincing in and of itself, without requiring complete understanding of the philosophical trappings in which so much material from this Armenian-American composer is clothed. Arzruni presents these works in a way that he believes will help them communicate Hovhaness’ beliefs and intentions most effectively – not chronologically, and not arranged by length or other obvious methods. Furthermore, Arzruni offers pieces of piano music in combination with ones that Hovhaness originally conceptualized differently. Thus, Invocations to Vahakn (1945) was written for piano and percussion (Adam Rosenblatt is the percussionist); Yenovk (“The Troubadour,” 1947/1951) was created as seven movements for piano solo; Lalezar (1950-52) derives from a set of songs for bass voice and orchestra; and so forth.

These are the first three works on the disc, lasting, respectively, 13, 11 and four-and-a-half minutes. So in less than half an hour, Arzruni already gives listeners a portrait of Hovhaness presented at varying lengths. In terms of time span, it is true that most of the pieces date from the mid-1940s through the mid-1950s, but even within that period, there is considerable variety. Like many other prolific composers – and Hovhaness was quite prolific, although very little of his music is heard frequently – Hovhaness is said to have had “periods” of differing focus. Thus, some works here imitate the sound of Near Eastern and Middle Eastern string instruments. Some draw directly on specific nations’ music, not only that of Armenia but, for example, that of Greece in the three-movement Suite on Greek Tunes (1949), one of a number of world première recordings heard here, and that of the Orient in general in Mystic Flute (1937). Other pieces here are Journey into Dawn (1954), Laona (1956), Lake of Van Sonata (1946/1959), Vijag (1946), and Hakhpat (1946/1951, another piano-and-percussion piece).

Although there is much of interest to be heard by simply listening to this disc, the barriers to full enjoyment and understanding of Hovhaness are shown through the works’ titles: the references are often obscure and generally necessary for a listener to apprehend the mood fully – and, in many cases, to connect to the specific form of mysticism that the composer is expressing. Arzruni is an excellent interpreter of this rather rarefied repertoire, and this disc is as good a choice as any for listeners who would like to hear more of Hovhaness than his few works that are occasionally programmed in concerts and recitals. The CD is very much an acquired taste, although it will be to the taste of listeners wishing to acquire greater familiarity with an unusual, visionary 20th-century composer.

Alan Hovhaness: Selected piano compositions

Pianist Şahan Arzruni performs world premiere recordings of unpublished works

110th anniversary of Hovhaness's birth is March 8, 2021

The pianist Şahan Arzruni has stacks of handwritten manuscripts from his longtime friendship with the American-Armenian composer Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000). On the album Alan Hovhaness: Selected piano compositions (Kalan Music) Arzruni recorded a collection of these works, nearly all world premiere recordings of unpublished scores.

Although Hovhaness has a vast catalogue of 500+ works, including 67 symphonies and music for chorus, chamber music and solo piano, few of his works receive regular performances. Influenced by the music of his Armenian father’s homeland, his style is trademarked with the nationalistic music he incorporated into his compositions.  

The Armenian pianist Şahan Arzruni says the compositions date from the 1940s and early 1950s. Arzruni writes in the liner notes, "Alan Hovhaness was a musician-mystic who rejected the materialistic values of the Machine Age. He explored, instead, the transcendental realm—using music as a link between the physical and metaphysical worlds. Hovhaness took non-Western cultures as his point of departure, while employing the tools of Western music as his frame of reference."

The liner notes booklet contains extensive photos, historical information, and analysis in English, Armenian and Turkish, written by Arzruni. Although the album was released in 2019, it was not distributed in the United States. It is available for purchase on Amazon. Contact ClassicalCommunications@gmail.com to request a physical or digital copy.

Alan Hovhaness: Selected Piano Compositions

Şahan Arzruni, piano

(Kalan Music, 2019)

Read the liner notes

View Şahan Arzruni's
Digital Press Kit

Request a copy of this CD

Şahan Arzruni (shah-HAN ards-roo-nee) is an Armenian classical pianist, ethnomusicologist, lecturer, composer, writer and producer, residing in New York City. He has toured throughout the world and has given command performances at the White House and the British, Danish, Swedish and Icelandic courts. 

Motivated by ethnic awareness in the United States, Arzruni continuously researches the musical roots of his Armenian heritage. He recorded a three-record anthology of Armenian piano music and co-produced an eight-disc set of instrumental and vocal Armenian music. He also delivered papers and organized symposia for Harvard University, Columbia University and University of Michigan. Şahan Arzruni is the author of scholarly books and is a contributor of articles for academic journals, The New Grove Dictionary and the Dictionary of the Middle Ages.

In 2015, the president of the Republic of Armenia awarded him the Movses Khorenatsi Medal for exceptional achievement in cultural development. Mr. Arzruni holds degrees from The Juilliard School and has pursued doctoral studies at New York University. He has made dozens of recordings for Philips, New World Records, Musical Heritage Society and other labels.