Event: Qanun Crossroads
03 April 2010 at 8:00pm
Emirates Palace Ballroom, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Hasmik Leyloyan will play a varied and exciting set from Mozart to Arno Babajanyan and Aram Khatchaturyan with the Camertone Chamber Music Ensemble, as part of Abu Dhabi Festival 2010.
Hasmik Leyloyan is considered the innovator of classical school of Armenian Qanun.
Hasmik Leyloyan completed the five-year course of the Armen Tigranyan School of Music in just two years. After that she studied in the Romanos Melikyan College of Music. In 1981 she graduated from the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan. She was the 1st graduate student in the class of Prof. Khachatur Avetisyan. Having graduated from the Conservatory, she began working at the Chair of the National Instruments of the same institution as an instructor.
Since 1970s Leyloyan is actively performing in different orchestras such as the Armenian State Philharmonic Society, the orchestra of Yerevan National Opera House, symphonic orchestras of Montreal, Toronto, Marcel, Sydney, Lyon and New York, The National Instruments Orchestra of Moscow and others.
She has also co-worked with numerous famous musicians, such as Ara Gevorgyan, Karen Durgaryan, Yervand Yerznkyan, Nikolai Kalinin, Daniel Decker, Ronny Barak, Kai Auhagen and others.
The laureate of national and international competitions Hasmik Leyloyan has given concerts in more than 40 countries.
As a skilled pedagogue and artist of Armenia, Prof. Hasmik Leyloyan of Yerevan State Conservatory, has educated many pupils.
Hasmik Leyloyan's arrangements and improvisations are already included in the repertoires of qanun players.
In the ?Armenian School of Qanun? textbook (2 parts), Leyloyan presents the first steps of learning qanun. The textbook also contains brief history of Armenian qanun, right position of hands and right sitting position, the uniqueness of the instrument, as well as composition pieces of Armenian folk music, music by Armenian composers and classical music of different nations.
Her ?Nostalgia? CD consists of two disks: the first includes compositions of Armenian composers; the second includes compositions from Europe and other countries, which were taken from live solo concerts.
She also has recorded ?Zartonk?, ?Fly My Heart?, ?Come Back My Darling?, ?Around the World? (CDs), as well as ?Golden Strings? and ?Come Back? (video recordings), which in a new way represent Hasmik Leyloyan?s art, her individuality and continuous search for different forms of creative self-expression.
Her work in the development and teaching of qanun, as well as organizing concerts and spreading the knowledge about the instrument is highly appreciated.
Website: http://www.hasmikleyloyan.info/
About the instrument (from Wikipedia):
The qanun or kanun is a string instrument found in Near Eastern traditional music based on Maqamat. It is basically a zither with a narrow trapezoidal soundboard. Nylon or PVC strings are stretched over a single bridge poised on fish-skins on one end, attached to tuning pegs at the other end.
While Armenian kanuns employ half-tones and Arabic kanuns quarter-tones, typical Turkish kanuns divide the equal-tempered semitone of 100 cents into 6 equal parts, yielding 72 equal divisions (or commas) of the octave.
Sources: Hasmik Leyloyan's website, Wikipedia, YouTube, Hourig Mayissian
Qanun master Hasmik Leyloyan, performs Zartonk (Awakening)
