Black - Boghossian Foundation

Concert de violoncelle avec Sevak Avanesyan à la Villa Empain

In Autumn 2020, the 30-year-old conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan flared up unexpectedly. The Armenian-Belgian cellist Sevak Avanesyan lived through this war that lasted for 44 days.

On the evening of 8 October 2020, the dome of Ghazanchetsots Cathedral was hit by a shell that severely damaged the building’s interior. Soon after the explosion, Sevak Avanesyan sat among the rubble, playing music to mourn. A poignant video of Avanesyan playing Krunk by the Armenian composer Komitas quickly caught on around the world.

With Black, Sevak Avanesyan picks up on the brutality he experienced first-hand. War through the eyes of a musician. He invites us to dialogue and brings symbolic 44 solo cello works by Bach over Ligeti, to works by Armenian composer Komitas. Evocative and pure. An invigorating artistic performance for both performer and listener.

The Boghossian Foundation is organizing this concert to raise funds for SOAR (Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief), in favour of families of victims of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Program
Bach Chaconne, Ligeti Cello sonata, Albinoni adagio, Cassado cello suite, Komitas Krunk

Saturday 13 May at 6.30 pm
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Saturday 13 May at 8.30 pm
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Sevak Avanesyan was born into a musical family in Armenia and studies cello at the age of 5 with renowned Armenian cellist Medea Abrahamyan, student of the legendary Mstislav Rostropovitsch. He went on to study at the Tchaikovsky Specialized Secondary and Musical School in Yerevan in 2003. That year, his entire family moves to Brussels where he joins the class of Ms. Viviane Spanoghe at the Royal Conservatory. He graduates with the highest distinction and is then accepted in the class of the renowned cellist Claudio Bohorquez at the “Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler” in Berlin. Sevak has worked with highly respected conductors such as Hans Graf, Hugh Wolff, Andrey Boreyko and George Pehlivanian. As an ardent chamber musician, he also performed with many well-known musicians such as Augustin Dumay, Philippe Graffin, Pascal Devoyon, Pavel Gililov, Maxime Vengerov, Alexei Moshkov, and musicians of the younger generation: Aleksandr Khramouchin, Lily Maisky. In March 2013, he became the Solo cellist of the National Orchestra of Belgium for 4 years.

The Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief (SOAR) was formed in 2005 as a charitable organization to provide humanitarian assistance to orphaned Armenian children.