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The Gurdjieff Ensemble

The Gurdjieff Ensemble is one of the leading Ensembles of the world specializing in ancient and medieval music from the East. The Gurdjieff Ensemble combines the musical traditions of Armenia with ancient music, modern classical music, jazz and world music, having some of Armenia’s leading traditional music practitioners playing duduk, blul, saz, tar, kamancha, oud, kanon, santur, dap, tmbuk, dhol, pku, zurna, kshots and burvar. The Gurdjieff Ensemble brings the piano music of the Armenian philosopher, author and composer George I. Gurdjieff back to its ethnic inspirational sources. The Gurdjieff Ensemble presents the music of Armenian composer, ethnomusicologist, arranger, singer and priest KomitasKomitas, arranged for traditional Armenian instruments to go more deeply into the music and its interpretative potential. The repertoire is expanded with works collected by Bela Bartok and major European modern composers works commissioned for The Gurdjieff Ensemble and classical instruments or choir.

General


The Gurdjieff Ensemble, based in Armenia, was founded in 2008, and is led by the Armenian musician, Levon Eskenian. Levon Eskenian turned his attention to Gurdjieff while studying at Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan (https://conservatory.am/en/main/). An encounter with ECM’s “Chants, Hymns and Dances” recording – the 2003 album with new Gurdjieff arrangements by Anja Lechner and Vassilis Tsabropoulos – also prompted him to think deeply about Gurdjieff’s sources, as he recognized a number of the tunes as clearly related to folk songs or sacred songs of the region, to songs he’d known since childhood. Eskenian’s liner notes to the present recording trace each of the pieces to specific geographical points of origin and/or inspiration. The logical consequence of this work was the founding of the Gurdjieff Folk Instruments Ensemble in 2008. The group gave its first concerts in Gyumri (Alexandropol), Gurdjieff’s birthplace, and recorded its debut album in Yerevan in the winter of 2008.

Concerts
Edison Award-Winning, ECM Records' recording artists who comprise The Gurdjieff Ensemble have successfully collaborated with many prestigious festivals and concert venues, touring in nearly 150 cities in 26 countries in Europe, Australia, Russia, the Middle East, North, and South America, among which are sold-out performances at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Boulez hall, the Holland Festival, the Bozar Center in Brussels, the Tonhalle in St.Gallen, Switzerland, the Gulbenkian hall in Lisbon, the Sala São Paulo in Brazil and numerous prestigious festivals such as the Holland Festival in the Netherlands, the Wege Durch Das Land (Wege Durch Das Land), Lux Aeterna, Rudolstadt and Morgenland festivals in Germany, The Imago Dei in Austria, The Stanser Musiktage in Switzerland, the Mustonen Festival in Estonia, the Budapest Spring festival in Hungary, the Etnokrakow and Nostalgia Festivals in Poland, the [[World_Music_Festival_Chicago|in USA and many more. These concerts have vividly demonstrated the ensemble’s appeal to varied audiences from early to modern classical music, from folk to jazz and world music.

Georges I. Gurdjieff
Origins of the project:

The idea of ​​this project was to reinterpret piano transcriptions of Thomas de Hartmann, from pieces collected and used by Georges I. Gurdjieff, an Armenian composer, philosopher and spiritual teacher of the twentieth century, during his work as a group around the Fourth Way method. Levon Eskenian's main intention in creating this ensemble was to revive the Armenian musical traditions that fueled Gurdjieff. This is why he wished to create "ethnographically authentic" arrangements of pieces by the philosopher and composer. He then made these arrangements for ensemble and created the Gurdjieff Ensemble in 2008, surrounded by Armenian musicians, all playing traditional instruments from Armenia and the Middle East.

The Gurdjieff Ensemble's first album, Music of G. I. Gurdjieff, was released in 20112 on the German jazz label ECM Records. This original work, composed of 17 songs, was well received by the public and the specialist press, and won various awards including that of the "album of the year" at the 2012 Edison Awards in the Netherlands. Levon Eskenian and his musicians, through this first opus, manage to pay tribute and draw attention to the folkloric and spiritual roots of Armenian, Greek, Arabic, Kurdish, Assyrian, Persian and more broadly Caucasian. This first project, Music of G. I. Gurdjieff, is therefore a musical, historical, spiritual and ethnographic work.

Edison Award-Winning Album ECM has had a long involvement with internationally renowned Armenian philosopher and composer Gurdjieff’s music, starting with Keith Jarrett’s recording of the “Sacred Hymns”, which brought about an international revival of interest in the music. Gurdjieff, who is considered to be one of the most influential spiritual leaders of the 20th century, created the approach of the Harmonious Development of Man in the course of his journeys throughout the world. The extraordinary pieces by Gurdjieff that Eskenian has collected have their roots in ​Armenian, Greek, Arabic, Assyrian, Kurdish, Persian and Caucasian folk and spiritual music, and the rearrangements were created with an eye towards preserving their authenticity. With this project and internationally acclaimed album “Music of Georges I.Gurdjieff” the ensemble returns the music of Gurdjieff to its inspirational sources.

Komitas
The Gurdjieff Ensemble performs Komitas’s works arranged for authentic traditional instruments. Komitas was a crucially important figure in Armenian music history, who collected thousands of Armenian folk and sacred songs from places where Armenian people were annihilated years after during the Armenian Genocide, some of which date back to the 5th century and more. Komitas explored how Armenian sacred and secular traditions have influenced each other and established a frame of reference within which new music could be created. The Music of Komitas had a huge impact on many great musicians including ​Debussy.

Many of the melodies, which had been passed on orally for centuries, were first transcribed by Komitas. Some of these songs and dances he transformed into extensive piano and vocal-piano works. Komitas was committed to keeping the original character and sound of the dances alive: his scores include precise instructions to the performer about how to imitate the traditional instruments on the piano. In the composer’s spirit, Levon Eskenian and the Gurdjieff Ensemble bring this original sound and world back to life. At the request of the producer and founder of the ECM Records label, Manfred Eicher, Levon Eskenian produced two new recordings centered on the work of the priest and composer Komitas Vardapet (1869-1935) In the making-of of these recordings, Eskenian explains his enthusiasm for the realization of these projects: “From the beginning of the formation of the Gurdjieff Ensemble, I had in mind the music of Komitas. I knew I wanted to make an arrangement of authentic instruments and when we talked to Manfred Eicher about our second album, he suggested that we focus on his music. I was very happy because his work had always interested me, even before Eicher told us about it. So I totally immersed myself in his compositions. I was amazed to see how on the piano, with such precision, Komitas wanted to reproduce the sound, articulation and rhythm of these original instruments. The result is that he composed really unique pieces, with a very special structure too. This is what we wanted to recreate with this second. " The two albums were recorded in February 2015 in Lugano, Switzerland, at the Auditorio Stelio Molo RS5I studio. The first recording, soberly titled Komitas, is that of the Gurdjieff Ensemble. It was released a few months later, on October 2, 20156, on the ECM Records label. The second opus, Komitas: Piano Composition, is an album co-produced by Levon Eskenian for the Armenian pianisite Lusine Grigoryan and has been distributed on the same label, ECM Records, since November 2017. This album can be considered as an accompanying volume on the piano Gurdjieff Ensemble Komitas album. Indeed, it is not really part of the group's discography, but their sessions of common recordings and their musical compositions in reference to Komitas show a certain coherence between these two projects

Syrian - Armenian Project
This project is inspired by the historical and current relationship between Syria and Armenia built upon supporting each other in times of distress and emigration. Pieces have been commissioned by both Syrian and Armenian composers, including the famous Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian with "Tun Ari" (Come Home) written for this project, the Grammy Award winning Syrian composer Kinan Azmehand more. The Syrian Hewar Ensemble and The Armenian Gurdjieff Ensemble aim to blur the lines between the improvised and composed, the traditional and contemporary music in their spontaneous “dialogue” on stage.

Bela Bartok and Komitas Project
Both composers were among the first ethnomusicologists. Several compositions of B.Bartok (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Béla_Bartók) collected from Anatolia will be premiered by the Gurdjieff Ensemble in Budapest and together with the project Komitas or Music of Georges I.Gurdjieff will be performed by the Gurdjieff Ensemble starting from 2020.

Musicians

 * 1) Emmanuel Hovhannisya: Duduk, Pku, Zurna - Armen Ayvazyan: Kamancha
 * 2) Avag Margaryan: Pogh, Zurna
 * 3) Aram Nikoghosyan: Oud
 * 4) ​Davit Avagyan: Tar
 * 5) Mesrop Khalatyan: Dap, Dhol
 * 6) Vladimir Papikyan: Santur, Voice
 * 7) Meri Vardanyan: Kanon
 * 8) Norayr Gapoyan: Duduk, Bass Duduk
 * 9) Eduard Harutyunyan: Tmbuk, Cymbal, Kshots, Burvar, Bell

Levon Eskenian
The Armenian musician Levon Eskenian - Artist Director of the Ensemble- was born in Lebanon in 1978. In 1996 he moved to Armenia where he currently lives. In 2005 he graduated from the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan where he obtained a Master’s degree studying the piano with Professor Robert Shugarov. In 2007 he took his Postgraduate degree in the class of Professor Willy Sargsyan. He has also studied composition, organ and improvisation classes at the Conservatory and harpsichord in Austria and Italy with the English organist and harpsichordist Christopher Stembridge. One of the most active figures in Armenia’s musical life, a director of various ensembles and artistic institutions, Eskenian has performed both as a soloist and chamber musician with a program ranging from early baroque to contemporary music in Europe, Middle East, Asia, South America, and Australia. Eskenian has organized numerous concerts, lectures, masterclasses and festivals in Armenia. He is the founder of the Akna Cultural Society to organize studies and promote rarely performed repertoire ranging from ancient, early baroque to contemporary music. In 2008, gathering leading musicians playing Armenian and Middle Eastern authentic instruments Eskenian founded the Gurdjieff Ensemble to play his arrangements of the G.I. Gurdjieff/Thomas de Hartmann piano music. The debut album on ECM records, Music of G.I. Gurdjieff was widely acclaimed and won prestigious awards including the Edison Award as Album of the Year in 2012. Now Eskenian has turned his attention to Komitas, arranging for authentic instruments, which was released on ECM Records in autumn 2015. Eskenian and The Gurdjieff Ensemble are continuing the yearly tours around the world.