In solidary with the Ukrainian people, the Arts Arena is proud to present a concert featuring two of Ukraine’s greatest composers. The concert is in conjunction with Project 1991, a Paris-based initiative dedicated to exploring and promoting Ukraine’s rich musical heritage while supporting Ukrainian musicians affected by the war.
Musical Program
Volodymyr Zagortsev (1944 – 2010)
Trio for violin, cello & piano (2008). French premiere
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Violin sonata
Valentyn Silvestrov (*1937)
“Drama” for violin, cello, & piano (1970-71)
1. Sonata for violin & piano (1970)
2. Sonata for cello & piano (1971)
3. Trio for violin, cello & piano (1971)
The Composers
Volodymyr Zagortsev is considered one of the fathers of 20th-century Ukrainian classical music, with works whose dominant aesthetic is avant-garde, post-avant-garde, and neo-folklore. His international success owed much to his aboitiy to create music that was synchronoized with contemporary Western music, and his music mas been performed in New York, Boston, Berlin, Las Vegas, London, Zagreb, Bratislava, and elsewhere. In 1980, his orchestral piece “Gradations” was performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta. Along with his friend V.V.Silvestroy and others, he was a member of the informal group of composers known as the “Kyiv avant-garde” or the “Boris Lyatoshynsky school.” He died in 2010.
Born in Kyiv in 1937, Valentyn Vasylyovych Silvestrov is a Ukranian composer and pianist of contemporary classical music. Best known for his post-modern musical style, some, if not most, of his works could be considered neoclassical and post-modernist. Using traditional tonal and modal techniques, he creates a unique and delicate tapestry of dramatic and emotional textures, qualities which he suggests are otherwise sacrificed in much of contemporary music. “I do not write new music. My music is a response to and an echo of what already exists,” Silvestrov has said. He fled the Ukraine in 2022 after the full-scale Russian invasion and today lives in Berlin.
The Artists
Violinist Rachel Koblyakov appears regularly as both soloist and chamber musician in Europe, Asia, and the US and is equally passionate about performing classical as well as freshly-composed music. Her solo debut took place with the Central Illinois Youth Orchestra at the age of 12 and she has since appeared as soloist with ensembles including the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France, Hof Symphony, Orchestre des Lauréats du Conservatoire, Paris, Aeon Ensemble New York, and Ukho Ensemble Kyiv.
Dedicated to exploring and cultivating new music, she worked closely with a number of composers, including Wolfgang Rihm, Matthias Pintscher, Stefano Gervasoni, Samuel Andreyev, and Stuart Saunders Smith, and as guest with various new music ensembles, including Ensemble Modern and Ensemble Intercontemporain. As soloist and first violinist of the Ukho Ensemble Kyiv (Ukraine) since 2016, she has given countless premieres of new works. In August 2022, she joined the Paris-based Ensemble Écoute, dedicated to new music and interdisciplinary collaboration, as both violinist and co-artistic director.
She holds a BA and an MA from The Juilliard School of Music, New York, as a full scholarship student of Ronald Copes; two Artist Diplomas from the Conservatoire Supérieur National de Musique de Paris, one focusing on classical violin repertoire, the other specializing in contemporary music with scholarships from the Or du Rhin and Tarazzi Foundations. She has also benefited from a full scholarship to study with Igor Volochine at the Ecole Normale de Musique – Salle Cortot.
She has curated and taken part in a number of productions with visual artists and choreographers such as Rainer Ganahl and Massimo Gerardi, and a theater production with actor/director Mehdi Dehbi, and is co-founder of and performer in the musical show “Tubalirum” for a young audience series, which had its premiere at the Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin.
Koblyakov can be heard as first violin soloist of the Ukho Ensemble on discs for Kairos, Winter & Winter, and EMI Vinci, in duo with pianist Orlando Bass for Triton, and most recently, on Creo with Ensemble Ecoute for Scala Music and on Violin Soliloquy, her debut solo album of unaccompanied violin works for Paladino Media – Orlando Records.
Askar Ishangaliyev
French-Kazakh cellist Askar Ishangaliyev has won first prizes in the Flame and Batelot-Rampal competitions, as well as the Prix de Musée Bonnat. He has performed extensively throughout Europe, the US, and Kazakhstan, including sonatas with Françoise Buffet Arsenijevic, Michaël Lévinas, Jean Angliviel, and Anna Kavalerova, in trios with Jean-Noël Molard and Jean Angliviel, and as a soloist with the Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, the Tours Orchestra, Halle Staatskappele, and the Lille National Orchestra. He also performs regularly with the National Orchestra of Kazakhstan. Committed to championing contemporary repertoire, he has worked with musicians such as Pierre Boulez, Mauricio Kagel, Peter Eötvös, Michaël Lévinas, Bruno Mantovani, Martin Matalon, and Heinz Holliger, and since 2008 has been the principal cellist of the Le Balcon, an ensemble founded by six students of the Conservatoire de Paris that stimulates writing for amplified acoustic instruments and to rethink the aesthetic of the concert, seeking new methods of production, interpretation, and configuration.
Born in Almaty, he began studying the cello at the age of seven. Noted for his musical abilities, he decided to continue his studies in France, where he studied under Jean-Marie Gamard at the Conservatoire National Supérieure de Musique et de Danse de Paris and earned his Higher Education Diploma with honors. In 2013, Askar received a Diploma of Performing Artist in Contemporary Repertoire and Creation. He also attended numerous Master Classes with Richard Aaron, Stefan Popov, Ivan Monighetti, and Gary Hoffman. He is supported by the Meyer Foundation and ADAMI.
Ukrainian pianist Evgeny (Yevhen) Gromov started to study music at the age of 7 with Yelena Skliarova and continued his music studies at Kyiv’s specialized Mykola Lysenko musical school (with Anatoly Hud’ko and Natalia Tolpyho, 1987 – 1991). He entered the Tchaikovsky National Musical Academy of Ukraine, Kyiv, studying with Valery Kozlov and Iya Pavlova from 1991 – 1996. He attended master-classes and workshops of composers Helmuth Lachenmann, Pierre Boulez, and Péter Eötvös working on 20th-century masterpieces, including their own. (Lucern Festival Academy, 2005 – 2007, Switzerland).
Gromov’s special interest is the 20th-century music of, for example, Satie, Debussy, Scriabin, Schoenberg,. Webern, Berg,. Ravel, Bartók, Szymanowski, Roslavets, Lourié, Mossolov, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Dallapiccola, Messiaen, Jolivet, Cage, Carter, Feldman, Boulez, Berio, Stockhausen, Ustvolskaya, Denisov, Volkonsky, Karetnikov, Schnittke, Knaifel, Kurtág and others. Yet his repertoire also includes works by Purcell, Bach, Händel, Rameau. Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Bortniansky, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Glinka, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, J. Brahms … In this way, he is also the creator and performer of conceptual musical projects offering seldom played works that establish non-standard links between different music epochs.
Alongside his performing activity, Gromov is a researcher and educator. In 2013, he was co-author of a report on the early formative years of composer Volodymyr Zagortsev. He has performed in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and has recorded numerous piano compoistions, including of works by both Zagortsev and Valentyn Silvestrov, whose compositions he will perform at the Arts Arena concert.
The Arts Arena is grateful to the Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine Kaye Foundation for the generous grant that made this concert possible.