Visages d’Arménie Festival

“Super-soloist” is the way France Musique introduced Dmitry Masleev when he made his debut with the Orchestre National de France at the beginning of 2020, playing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, the work that helped launch his international career, when he won the 2015 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow. Dmitry’s solo recital debut at the Philhamonie de Paris in March 2022 confirmed that a new phenomenon has emerged among the most interesting pianists of our time: “What an artist! Everything is so simple, so ingenious, without the slightest attempt to explain the music,” wrote Alain Lompech (Bachtrack).

Dmitry’s return to La Roque d’Anthéron festival last summer was described in La Provence as “a magical evening where virtuosity merged with the innermost workings of the soul.” His recent festival appearances also include Klavierfestival Ruhr, Lucerne, Verbier, Montreux, Rheingau, Bad Kissingen, Bodensee, Bergamo and Brescia.

Dmitry’s orchestral collaborations include the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (Robert Trevino), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (Mikko Franck), Orchestre National de Lyon (Tan Dun), Bamberg Orchestra (Christoph Eschenbach), and Orquestra Cadaqués (David Robertson), Tampere Philharmonic (Joshua Weilerstein), Verbier Festival Orchestra (Gábor Takács-Nagy), and many others.

The vocal quintet LUYS (meaning “Light”) was founded in 2002 and consists of five Armenian feminine voices: soprano – Hasmik Baghdasaryan and Mariam Mailyan, alto – Marine Nazaryan, Sofya Konjoyan and Shahane Zalyan. LUYS repertoire features Armenian medieval spiritual songs, pieces from Divine Liturgy, folk songs, songs arranged by Komitas (1869-1935), and works by contemporary Armenian composers.

LUYS quintet is a regular guest of prestigious international festivals, including performances at numerous international festivals: Musica Insieme and Amici della Musica in Italy; Internationale Musiktage Dom zu Speier, A Cappella Music Festival, and Musicfest Stuttgart in Germany. At the Venezia in Musica Competition and Festival in Italy, LUYS got two Golden Diplomas for Spiritual and Folk Song nominations.LUYS Vocal Quintet toured across Armenia and performed abroad in Italy, Germany, Austria, England, Switzerland, Canada, and Australia.

The quintet recorded three albums:

– Light To the World (NOAH e. V Verein, 2003),
– Come to Light (NOAH e. V Verein, 2004), and LUYS (Naregatsi Art Institute, 2009).

Harutyun Chkolyan is a multi-instrumentalist specializing in Armenian folk wind instruments such as the duduk, zurna, shvi, and pku; he also performs on clarinet and ney flute. Considered a musical prodigy, he began his studies on shvi (an Armenian recorder) at six.

Mr. Chkolyan graduated from the Komitas State Conservatory in Yerevan, where he studied under renowned duduk master Gevorg Dabaghyan.

In 2006, he was honored to perform for Senator Edward Kennedy at the Massachusetts State House. In 2007, Mr. Chkolyan was a special guest at The World radio show hosted by Marco Werman on PRI (USA) in collaboration with BBC and WGBH.

Harutyun Chkolyan is a member of the State Folk Ensemble of Armenia. He collaborated with the Armenian State Philharmonic Orchestra, the iCulture Orchestra, the State Chamber Orchestra of Armenia, the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra, and the Armenian State Jazz Orchestra. His international career featured performances with the Kharkiv Youth Academic Symphony Orchestra Slobozhansky, Szczecin Philharmonic Orchestra, Staatskapelle Weimar, Orchestra of the Opera and Ballet Theater of Yakutia, among others.

Born in 2003 in Yerevan, Armenia, Lilit Petrosyan began studying kanon under professor Tsovinar Hovhannisyan at the music school named after Alexander Spendiaryan in Yerevan. She gave her first concert when she was 6, and appeared internationally at the age of 10. Lilit regularly performs at international competitions, festivals and gives recitals.

In January 2022 she returned to New York, Washington, and New Jersey with several performances. Later this year she took part in the Moscow Meets Friends international festival named after Vladimir Spivakov.

Ms. Petrosyan started 2021 with the US tour, and performed in New York, New Jersey, Washington, Orlando, Tampa, Detroit, Cleveland. The same year Lilit won the Republican Competition, and entered the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan class of professor Tsovinar Hovhannisyan.

During the COVID-19 pandemic she gave an online solo recital, which was presented by the Classical Young Stars Vienna foundation.

Ruben Kozin was born in 1997. When he was only 5 years old, he entered music school. At the age of 12, Ruben changed to the Central music school at the P.I. Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory studying piano by Natalia Trull, professor of the Conservatory. In 2020 Ruben graduated from Moscow state P.I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory.

In Russia Ruben Kozin has performed at the Great and the Small Rachmaninov Halls of the Moscow State Conservatory, at the Concert Hall of the Russian State Gnessin Academy of Music, the Moscow International House of Music and at the Concert Hall of the Moscow Museum of Musical Culture.

Furthermore, Ruben has given concerts in Armenia, Croatia, Poland, Lithuania, Italy, Malta, Kazakhstan, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and Belarus.

Ruben has already achieved a number of international competitions. In May 2016

Born in 1994 in Marseille, a student of Frédéric Ladame then of Suzanne Gessner and Patrice Fontanarosa in Paris, he was unanimously admitted in 2012 to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris in the class of Roland Daugareil from which he graduated with the highest distinctions by obtaining a First Prize in violin. He then perfected his skills in Italy with the violinist Salvatore Acccardo at the Chigiana Academy of Siena and at the Walter Stauffer Academy of Cremona, where he learned the secrets of the Italian school of violin and developed a taste for the acrobatic virtuosity of the works of Niccolo Paganini.

He also followed the teaching of Renaud Capuçon at the Haute-Ecole de Musique de Lausanne, from which he also graduated with a Master of Soloist, and studied chamber music with professors such as François Salque, Jérôme Pernoo or Nobuko Imai, Pamela Frank and Sadao Harada within the Seiji Ozawa International Chamber Music Academy. He is the winner of numerous international grand prizes: Ginette Neveu International Competition, Rodolfo Lipizer International Competition, Isaac Stern International Competition Grand Prix in Shanghai, First Grand Prize at the European Young Talents Competition Un Violon sur le Sable, First Prize Young Talent of Île-de-France, Audience Award at the Autumn Musical Festival of Young Performers, Banque Populaire Foundation Prize, L’Or du Rhin Foundation Prize and Fondation de France Prize (…).

For more than 25 years, Eduard Ayanyan has been involved in screenwriting, writing, journalism, PR, branding, and developing projects of cultural and social significance. He wrote movie scripts, animation film scenarios, documentary scripts, plays and stage productions, librettos, and song lyrics. Eduard Ayanyan is the author of numerous articles and essays.

From 2005 to 2015, he was a co-founder and an editor-chief of the Yerevan Magazine, and later as CEO and an editor-chief of one of the publishing houses in Armenia.

“The Yerevan Magazine has become a landmark project for Armenia and the entire Armenian world. It radically changed the level of publishing and journalistic activity in Armenia. In addition, “Yerevan” helped many Armenians self-identify, immersing them in their history, culture, science, and achievements in other fields. The homeland should unite us. I am proud that I dedicated almost ten years of my life to this project.” – Eduard Ayanyan.

Sevak Asrian was born in Stepanakert, Artsakh.

“I started taking photographs at the age of 14. The first teacher was Dad. He taught me to photograph on film and print photos in a home darkroom. Mostly, I photographed my native Artsakh. Unfortunately, I couldn’t capture much, but I can say that I have, perhaps, the largest archive of photographs of Artsakh” – S. Asrian.

Sevak Asrian is the author of the photo project The Power of Memory, which presented hundreds of photographs of Armenian cultural monuments and landscape photographs taken in the territories of Artsakh until 2020. Prize-winner of the Armenian stage of the international competition Wiki Loves Monuments – 2022. One of Sevak Asrian’s photos was included in the top 50 photographs of the competition finals. At the international competition Wiki Loves Earth – 2023, Sevak’s photographs were presented in the international final.

Born in 1976, Suren started to photograph when he was sixteen and became a professional photographer in 2006. His photographic interests span from Macro to Portraits, Creative photo projects, Landscape, and much more. Suren’s photos have been published in numerous magazines and newspapers in Armenia and worldwide.

His latest popular series of close ups of a human eye – entitled “Your beautiful eyes,” together with a similar series on “Animal eyes,” have had millions of views on the Web. They were published by National Geographic, Yahoo!, Die Zeit, The Sun, Daily Mail, The Independent, Telegraph, La Republica, Liberation, Guardian, Wired, Huffington Post, Wedemain, The Shortlist, DT Magazine, MAXIM, and many others. The photos were also used by BBC Spain, BBC Brasil, WNYC, Gizmondo and many others.

In parallel to photography, for the past ten years Suren has also enjoyed teaching physics, mathematics, projective geometry and astronomy at the Yerevan Waldorf School. From 1997 to 2011 he served as a scientific researcher at the Institute for Physical Research of National Academy of Sciences.