Season Opening Concert 

This Concert is sponsored by Ariel Premium Supply, Inc.

September 21
3:00 PM

Free Admission 

Washington University Concert Hall
560 Music Center - 560 Trinity Ave, St. Louis, MO 63130

Free Parking at the 560 Music Center and COCA Parking Garage—enter from Washington Ave.
PROGRAM

​Aram Khachaturian: Piano Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano 
Fikret Amirov: Six Pieces for Flute and Piano 
Sergei Prokofiev: Sonata for Two Violins in C major, Op. 56
Guillaume Connesson: Techno-Parade for Flute, Clarinet, and Piano
FEATURED ARTISTS

Jennifer Nitchman, Flute
Tzuying Huang, Clarinet
Ann Fink, Violin
Andrea Jarrett, Violin
Eva Kozma, Violin
Nina Ferrigno, Piano
​Program notes by Ann Fink
Aram Khachaturian: Piano Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano
Khachaturian was born in 1903, in Tbilisi, Georgia (which at the time was under Russian Imperialism) to an Armenian family. Although he didn’t study music as a young child, he fell in love with the Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian folk music he heard at cultural events and festivities he attended as a boy. In 1921, when Khachaturian was 18 years old, he followed in his older brother’s footsteps and moved to Moscow. He enrolled in Gnessin Musical Institute and Moscow State University studying cello, composition, and biology. Khachaturian decided to pursue a career in music, and in 1929, he began studies at the Moscow Conservatory where he stayed until he completed his graduate degree in 1936. Khachaturian composed his Trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano in 1932, while still enrolled at the Moscow Conservatory. The work is indicative of his love of folk melodies he grew up listening to, and they are woven consistently throughout the short three movement work. The trio can also be performed by violin, viola, and piano.

Khachaturian composed a large library of works during his lifetime including both a violin and cello concerto, three symphonies, 25 film scores, orchestral suites, a piano concerto, and most famously his ballets Spartacus and Gayane. The most widely known work by Khachaturian is the Sabre Dance from his ballet, Gayane. 

Although Khachaturian was heavily influenced by his own culture, he was also a devout communist. From a young age he was involved with spreading communist propaganda and in 1943, he officially joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Although his music contains elements of folk music from his indigenous culture, he was also heavily influenced by his training at Russian music conservatories, and even wrote his third symphony as a tribute to communism. However, possibly because he didn’t properly dedicate the piece or outwardly explain the work’s purpose, Khachaturian was accused of being a “formalist” (ignoring the standard practices of classical music in favor of jarring, cacophonous sounds and harmonies) along with Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and other Soviet composers of the time. He was forced to make a public apology and for a while afterwards suffered from humiliation and considered changing careers.

Khachaturian died in Moscow in 1978, just shy of his 75th birthday.

Fikret Amirov: Six Pieces for Flute and Piano
Fikret Amirov was born in November of 1922, in Ganja, Azerbaijan. In December of 1922, Azerbaijan became a member of the USSR. Amirov was exposed to Azeri music from a young age, as his father was a singer who composed, sang Mugam (modal music that weaves poetry and improvisation), and played the tar (Azerbaijan’s leading musical instrument that is played by plucking
the 11 strings). Amirov’s older sister was also musical, and both she and Amirov experienced local recognition for their talent as a duo. Amirov was greatly influenced by the Azerbaijani folk music he was surrounded by as a child, and although he pursued formal training as a composer and studied Western and Russian composers he became famous for creating his own genre of symphonic Mugam. These Mugams, the most famous of which were titled Shur and Kurd Ovshari were performed throughout the world by famous orchestras such as the Houston Symphony. Amirov was awarded many honors throughout his career including the People’s Artist of the USSR in 1965 and the USSR State Prize in 1980. Amirov died in Abu, Azerbaijan in 1984 at the age of 61. 

Six Pieces for Flute and Piano was composed in 1975. Each piece has a specific title: 1. Song of the Ashug (a traveling folk musician), 2. Cradle Song, 3. Dance, 4. In the Mountains of Azerbaijan, 5. At the Spring, and 6. Nocturne.

Sergei Prokofiev: Sonata for Two Violins in C major, Op. 56
Sergei Prokofiev was a Russian composer who lived from 1891 until 1953. He was part of the Russian Empire that is now Sontsivka, a village in Pokrovsk Raion (district) of Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. From a young age, Prokofiev showed a talent for composing and playing the piano. He spent most of his young life at the St. Petersburg Conservatory studying, composing,
and performing. Although Prokofiev completed his official studies in 1914, he returned to the conservatory during World War I to take lessons on the organ and avoid the draft.

From 1918 until 1936, Prokofiev lived abroad. First he immigrated to the United States, but after a short time moved to Paris. In 1922 he moved to the Bavarian Alps and then back to Paris in 1923. During the 1920’s and well into the 1930’s, Prokofiev was also traveling extensively in the Soviet Union and the United States for various compositional projects including productions of ballets, operas, and symphonic performances. It was during a vacation near St. Tropez in 1932 that Prokofiev was commissioned to write his Sonata for Two Violins. A Parisian society dedicated to performing new chamber music asked Prokofiev to write the piece for their inaugural concert in December of 1932. However, the unofficial premiere of the work took place three weeks earlier in Moscow by the two violinists of the Beethoven Quartet.

In 1936 Prokofiev settled in Moscow, but in 1941 when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union he evacuated to the town of Nalchik of Kabardino - Balkaria, 900 miles south of Moscow. Once there, Prokofiev met the Minister of Culture who encouraged him to incorporate the local folk music of the Kabardian people into his compositions. Prokofiev’s second string quartet was
the result. Prokofiev returned to Russia after the war. It was a troubled time for Prokofiev who had been denounced along with Shostakovich, Khachaturian, and three other famous composers by the Zhdanov Decree, a Soviet cultural doctrine. The artists were accused of formalism and of ignoring the standard practices of classical music in favor of jarring, cacophonous sounds and
harmonies. 

Many of Prokofiev's works were banned and Prokofiev was in a large amount of debt by 1948. He attempted to redeem himself in the eyes of Russian authorities with a new opera, The Story of a Real Man, but was unsuccessful. Prokofiev’s career troubles were combined with declining health and he withdrew further and further from society. He wrote his last work, Symphony No. 7 in 1952. Prokofiev died on March 5, 1953 the same day as Joseph Stalin.

Guillaume Connesson: Techno-Parade for Flute, Clarinet, and Piano
Guillaume Connesson was born in 1970, in Boulanger-Billancourt, France. He studied piano, composition, choir conducting, music theory, and music history at the Conservatoire National de Région. He has been the composer in residence at Orchestre National desk Pays de la Loire, the Orchestre de Pau, Pays de Béarn, and currently is in residence at Royal Scottish National
Orchestra. His works are performed by major symphony orchestras all over the world including Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Connesson teaches at the Conservatoire National d'Aubervilliers-la Courneuve. Techno Parade was composed in 2002, and can be thought of as an ironic transformation of techno music. The piece requires total virtuosity from all players as they compel the music forward via the relentlessly driving beat from beginning to end.