Saradjian and Vynnytsky perform at Rachmaninoff Festival (05/12/02)

Saradjian and Vynnytsky perform at Rachmaninoff Festival

LOS ANGELES - Cellist Vagram Saradjian and pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky were the featured performers at the Rachmaninoff Festival held at the Herbert Zipper Concert Hall, Colburn School for Performing Arts, on March 27.

The concert program included works by Rachmaninoff, Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14, and Sonata for Cello and Piano in G Minor, Op. 19, "Aria" by Babadjanian, "Suite Populaire Espagnole" by de Falla and Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor, Op. 40, by Shostakovich.

The festival concert, which was held as part of the Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition, was attended by world-renowned musicians and competition adjudicators, among them Byron Janis, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Dmitri Bashkirov, John Perry, Mikhail Voskressensky and Earl Wild, as well as competition contestants and music school professors.

Sergei Sylvansky, former professor at the Kyiv Conservatory, and currently, a coordinator of the Rachmaninoff International Competition and Festival, noted:

"The performance was truly outstanding, a veritable gift to the audience. Messrs. Saradjian and Vynnytsky captivated the audience from the outset. In the first half of the program, which was dedicated to the works of Rachmaninoff, the haunting melody of 'Vocalise' came through as a prayer, full of anguish for that which is irretrievably lost. Rachmaninoff's Sonata for Cello and Piano in G Minor, Op. 19 - a vast romantic canvas resonating with color, whose music is at once full of rapture and spiritually uplifting - was, as rendered by Saradjian and Vynnytsky, particularly powerful and convincing.

"Whereas Babadjanian's 'Aria,' which opened the second part of the program, was noteworthy for the simplicity and clarity of presentation, the execution of de Falla's 'Suite Espagnole' expanded the work's conceptual framework.

"The Shostakovich Sonata was formidable and simply overwhelming.

"Finally, Shchedrin's 'Cadrille,' which was performed as an encore, was conveyed with a light and humorous touch.

"The performance by Messrs. Saradjian and Vynnytsky was particularly remarkable for the confluence of playing, tonal richness, as well as power and passion, and an evident capacity to delight in the music and its rendering."

For his part, the renowned pianist Dmitri Bashkirov, grand prize laureate at the Marguerite Long International Piano Competition (Paris, 1955) and professor at the Moscow Conservatory and Escuela Superior Reina Sofia in Madrid, offered the following estimation:

"It was a pleasure for everyone involved in the competition to listen to the performance by Vagram Saradjian and Volodymyr Vynnytsky. All the more so, since I remember the latter still as a student at the Moscow Conservatory, whom, since then, I haven't heard for some 20 years.

"I must say that I, as well as the other members of the jury, found the remarkable confluence of playing particularly impressive. The playing of the pianist - was masterly, subtle and refined in all its manifestations, i.e., in terms of stylistic conception, tonal quality, and an acutely perceptive sense and vibrant musical responsiveness.

"It is a pleasure to note, and, I might add, it is not oftentimes, that a student, after having completed his studies, grows into a true master. It was a veritable pleasure to hear him [Vynnytsky] and I wholeheartedly wish him every further success."

Referring to the concert as a significant event in the Los Angeles area, Prof. Bashkirov concluded by saying that "There was a palpable atmosphere of enjoyment on the part of the audience as well as appreciation and acknowledgment of these outstanding musicians and their great art."

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The collaboration of Messrs. Saradjian and Vynnytsky dates from 1992. In 1994 the two musicians, performing as a duo, won the Distinguished Artists Award in New York. The duo then made a critically acclaimed debut in New York's Carnegie Hall.

They have since performed, among other concert engagements, at St. Smith's Square, London, and the Shostakovych Festival, Houston.

Mr. Saradjian is first prize laureate of the Tchaikovsky (1970) and Geneva (1975) International Cello Competitions. As a recitalist he has performed around the world in leading concert halls, participated in major music festivals, and played with leading orchestras and conductors.

Mr. Saradjian was born in Yerevan, Armenia, into a family of distinguished musicians. Upon completing his early music studies in Yerevan, he was invited by Mstislav Rostropovich to study with him at the Moscow Conservatory, where he earned his master's and doctoral degrees in performance.

His orchestral debut coincided with the conducting debut of his teacher, Maestro Rostropovich. In 1969, under the maestro's baton, he performed Dvorak's Cello Concerto with the Kyiv Philharmonic.

Mr. Saradjian has toured with leading orchestras and collaborated with such conductors as Valeriy Gergiev, Aram Khachaturian, Kyril Kondrashin, Yevgeni Svetlanov, Maestro Rostropovich, Maxim Shostakovich and Yuri Temirkanov.

He has premiered works by Alexander Tchaikovsky and Karen Khachaturian, and has appeared with violinist Maxim Vengerov and pianist Vag Papian in trio performances.

Mr. Saradjian's discography includes works by Schumann, Honegger and Dvorak, working with conductors like Gergiev, Fedosseyev, Mansurov and Bashmet.

Mr. Saradjian has taught at Oberlin Conservatory, Connecticut College, and the State University of New York, as well as at numerous festivals and in master classes. He is currently professor of violoncello at the University of Houston.

Mr. Saradjian plays a 1791 Montegazza cello from Milan.

Mr. Vynnytsky, laureate of the 1983 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition (Paris), has appeared in Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and St. John Smith's Square in London.

He has appeared with the Paris Radio and Television Orchestra, the Poznan Symphony Orchestra and the Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra.

He has performed chamber music with the St. Petersburg, the Zapolsky Danish and the Leontovych string quartets, and with violinists Daniel Phillips, Yuri Mazurkevich and Rafal Zambrzycki Payne, jazz pianist Adam Makowicz and cellist Natalia Khoma.

Mr. Vynnytsky has appeared in performance at the Shostakovich Festival in Houston, the Music Mountain Festival, Windham Chamber Music Festival, Lake San Marco Chamber Music Society, and the Music and Art Center of Greene County, where he has served as artistic director and resident pianist since 1996.

Born in Lviv, Mr. Vynnytsky studied first under Lydia Golembo and later at the Moscow Conservatory with Yevgeni Malinin. After earning his doctorate in 1983 from the Moscow Conservatory, he taught at the Kyiv Conservatory and concertized extensively throughout the republics of the former Soviet Union. He actively promoted contemporary music as a member of Kyiv's Perpetuum Mobile chamber orchestra.

Mr. Vynnytsky has recorded for the Ukrainian Broadcasting Corporation, and his compact discs include works by Mozart, Bortniansky, Chopin and Liszt on the Kobza label, and the works of Myroslav Skoryk on the Yevshan label.

He has been featured on WQXR Radio in New York and on National Public Radio.

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Among contestants at the Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition held in Los Angeles on March 27 were two entrants from Ukraine, Maryna Radyushyna and Oleksiy Yemtsov.

Ms. Radyushyna, 22, winner of the second prize of the 1999 Vladimir Horowitz International Competition (Kyiv), and laureate of the Festival of Young Musicians (St. Petersburg, 2002), received her early music training in Odesa. She came to the United States in 1996 to study at Florida International University. She is currently enrolled in a master's program in piano performance at the University of Miami.

Mr. Yemtsov, 19, was awarded first prize in the Vladimir Horowitz International Competition (Kyiv) and the Prokofieff Competition (Donetsk), and was a semi-finalist in the Sydney International Competition (2000). Currently a student at the Australian Institute of Music, he continues to study with Victor Makarov, with whom he began studies at the age of 7.

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