Ravelations: Nicolas Namoradze in Recital

5 PM Doors & Pre-Reception
6 PM Recital
7:30 PM Post-Reception

Ravelations: Nicolas Namoradze in Recital

Gotham Arts in collaboration with Groupmuse is delighted to host an intimate evening with composer & pianist Nicolas Namoradze. In celebration of Ravel’s 150th anniversary, the program features Namoradze’s own solo transcription of Ravel's Daphnis & Chloé Suite No. 2, selections from Debussy’s Préludes, and a special two-piano performance of Ravel’s Concerto in G Major with Pegasus founder and music director Karén Hakobyan.

All proceeds benefit Pegasus: The Orchestra, supporting its Young Artists Program and International Concerto Competition as the ensemble prepares for its 10th anniversary season. Additional tax-deductible gifts will be greatly appreciated.

Wine will be served.

Program

DEBUSSY Selections from Préludes

RAVEL Piano Concerto in G Major

Intermission

RAVEL-NAMORADZE Daphnis & Chloe Suite No. 2

About the Artists

Watch Nicolas perform Scriabin's Sonata No. 2 in g-sharp minor at Wigmore Hall

About Nicolas Namoradze

Pianist and composer Nicolas Namoradze is one of the most critically acclaimed musicians of his generation. He came to international attention in 2018 upon winning the triennial Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, Canada – one of the largest prizes in classical music. A BBC Music Magazine Rising Star, Gramophone One to Watch and Musical America New Artist, he was bestowed the Pianist of the Year Award by the UK Critics’ Circle in 2022. His often sold-out recitals around the globe have been met with universal critical praise, and recent album releases have received extraordinary accolades, including the Choc de Classica, Record of the Month in Limelight, Instrumental Disc of the Month in BBC Music Magazine, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, Editor’s Choice in Presto Classical and Critics’ Choice in International Piano, as well as a first-place debut in the UK charts for classical instrumental albums.

Highlights of the current season include a last-minute jump-in for Yefim Bronfman in a series of performances of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 with Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the broadcast of which was named by medici.tv as one of nine all-time greatest performances by former piano competition winners, alongside luminaries such as Argerich, Perahia, Pollini and Uchida in a “prizewinner to pantheon” lineup. Shortly thereafter, Namoradze was named among thirty-five pianists in medici.tv’s list of "history’s most celebrated pianists." Another jump-in this season at the Montreal Bach Festival received a slew of glowing reviews and led La Scena Musicale to call him a "a peerless poet… a sumptuous pianist, a sound philosopher." Further recent critical highlights include rare five-star reviews in The Telegraph and The Guardian, which called his performance at London’s Royal Festival Hall “ideally laconic and debonair, weighty yet exquisite, and exactingly precise in tone and touch.” A cover feature in International Piano declared his recital at Wigmore Hall “astonishing,” concluding that, “with so many talents and interests it is impossible to predict what this young man will go on to do: all we can be sure of is that it will be both original and unexpected.”

Other current activities include residencies at the Verbier Festival, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and the Konzerthaus Dortmund for a second consecutive year, recital appearances at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Munich’s Isarphilharmonie, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Kulturpalast Dresden and LuganoMusica, among others, and a series of performances with multiple Canadian orchestras of a new piano concerto written for him by Kati Agócs. Highlights of recent seasons include recitals at Carnegie Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan and Boston’s Gardner Museum, festival appearances at Tanglewood, Banff, Gstaad, Festival Radio France Montpellier, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Portland Piano International and others, and performances with orchestras including the London Philharmonic, Dresdner Philharmonie, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Milwaukee Symphony and the RAI Orchestra, with conductors such as Karina Canellakis, Hans Graf, Jeffrey Kahane, John Axelrod, Ken-David Masur, Finnegan Downie-Dear and Daniele Rustioni.

Highlights of his work as a composer include commissions and performances by leading artists and ensembles including Ken-David Masur, Lukas Ligeti, Tessa Lark, Metropolis Ensemble and the Momenta, Verona and Barkada Quartets, at festivals such as the Chelsea Music Festival, Honens Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Portland Piano International and the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, and several album releases on the Steinway & Sons label. He has also composed and produced a number of film soundtracks, including Le chant des étoiles, produced by the Musée Unterlinden, and Nuit d’opéra à Aix, made in association with the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. His compositions are published by the Japan-based Muse Press.

Namoradze is actively involved in new directions in pedagogy and audience engagement, informed by his background in music-related fields in the cognitive sciences. His doctoral thesis at the CUNY Graduate Center developed mathematical models for aspects of musical perception, winning the Barry Brook Award for dissertation of the year. It is now published by Springer as the book “Ligeti’s Macroharmonies” in the Computational Music Science series. He furthered this work through a postgraduate degree in neuropsychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London, where his research interests included new perspectives on musical pedagogy and performance. Namoradze presents innovative approaches to music appreciation through "mindful recitals," a concert format that intersperses musical performances with thought experiments and meditation exercises. Namoradze is also the creator of IDAGIO Mindfulness – a multimedia platform exploring intersections between music and the cognitive sciences – on IDAGIO, the world’s leading classical music streaming app.

Namoradze was born in Tbilisi, Georgia in 1992 and grew up in Budapest, Hungary. After completing his undergraduate in Budapest, Vienna and Florence, he moved to New York for his master’s at The Juilliard School and his doctorate at the CUNY Graduate Center, holding the Graduate Center Fellowship. His teachers and mentors have included Emanuel Ax, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Zoltán Kocsis, Oleg Maisenberg, Matti Raekallio, András Schiff and Eliso Virsaladze in piano, and John Corigliano in composition. After serving on the faculty of Queens College, where he taught chamber music, composition and music history, he now teaches piano and chamber music on the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center and The Juilliard School.

About Karén Hakobyan

Armenian-American pianist and composer Karén Hakobyan has emerged as a versatile force on the international musical scene. Since his Carnegie Hall debut at the age of seventeen, he has been performing in major concert halls in Armenia, Argentina, Mexico, Germany, France, Japan and the United States. Mr. Hakobyan appeared as a soloist in North America with the World Peace Sinfonietta, the University of Utah Philharmonia, the Salt Lake Symphony, Summer Arts Festival Orchestra, the New American Symphony, Ridgewood Symphony, Ureuk Symphony Orchestra and the World Festival Orchestra and internationally with the Tucuman Philharmonic Orchestra (Argentina), the Monterrey Symphony Orchestra (Mexico), the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Serenade Chamber Orchestra, and the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia.

Karén won Bronze Medal in the World Piano International Competition, 1st prize in the Pinault International Audiotape - Videotape Piano Competition and 2nd prize in the Armenian Legacy Pianists International Piano Competition. He has also won 1st prize in the Four Corners Piano Competition, and The Fite Piano Competition. He was a winner of the 2004 ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Competition. Of his March 2011 Carnegie Hall composition debut, David LaMarche (New York Concert Review) praised Karén as “a musician of abundant gifts and bountiful ideas.”

Karén regularly appears in prestigious festivals and concert series. Some of his festival performance highlights include: the "Lille International Piano(s) Festival" in France in 2005, "The Pianist as Composer" Festival at Mannes College of Music in 2008 and "The Mendelssohn Salon Yearlong Festival" in 2009 in New York City and Gina Bachauer International Festival in 2014 in Utah.

He was also featured at "Keys to the Future" Contemporary Music Concert Series in 2009 and 2010 in New York City. His performance of Vuk Kulenovic's "Virginal" in Le Poisson Rouge on the closing night of the "Keys to the Future" festival was described as "sensitively rendered" by New York Times. He was also featured in three special concerts during Carnegie Hall’s 2010-2011 season.

Highlights from Karén’s 2016- 2017 concert season include guest appearances with the Japan Sinfonia (Tokyo, Japan), Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra (Beirut, Lebanon), Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra (Yerevan, Armenia) and the Imperial Orchestra (Montreal, Canada) as well as solo recitals in Japan, Argentina, France, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.

Mr. Hakobyan's performances have been broadcasted on WQXR New York's Classical Radio Station, WMFT Chicago’s Classical Radio Station, Argentine National Radio, Monterrey’s (Mexico) Op. 102 Radio Station, Utah Public Radio 89.5 FM and on Armenian National Radio. His live performance of Khatchaturian Piano Concerto in Muza Kawasaki Hall in Tokyo with Mahler Festival Orchestra as well as selections from his solo recital in Ichigaya Hall will be released on Altus Cd Label in Japan in 2017.

Karén is the Founder and Artistic Director of Pegasus: The Orchestra based in New York City and is also the Cultural Program Advisor of Armenia Fund, USA.

What's the music?

Pegasus: The Orchestra K Hakobyan Piano

Nicolas Namoradze Piano

Attendees

Elissa L.

Barry B.

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James P.

Jeffery K.

Viktoria P.

Francesco C. Groupmuse Superhost

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Mariam C.

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Kiono T.

PETER D.

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Arie V.

Matthias K.

Analia F.