Like Sibelius for Finland, Aram Khachaturian is the national composer for Armenia. Khachaturian’s integration of Caucasian and especially Armenian-Georgian folk music into classical music reflects the Armenians’ longing for freedom and self-determination. What is remembered today, among other things, by the “International Khachaturian Festival” in Yerevan and the designation of a selection of his works as world documentary heritage.
To mark his 120th birthday, a special concert will take place in the All Saints Court Church instead of. The Armenian Colors Jazz Quartet transfers various works by Khachaturian – as well as those of her pianist and leader Vahagn Hayrapetyan, Tigran Mansurjan, Komitas and George Gershwin – into jazz. The current drama of the events in Nagorno-Karabakh has of course also caught up with this concert. So it is now a benefit concert to help the Armenians who have been expelled and fled from there.
Khachaturian meets Jazz, Thursday, November 16th, 8 p.m., Aller Heiligen-Hofkirche, Residenzstr. 1, www.musikerlebnis.de