On December 15, a piano concert will take place in the musical salon of the A.N. Scriabin Memorial Museum in Moscow. The performance by international competition laureate Elisey Babanov will feature Scriabin's sonatas and works by our contemporary, composer Mamed Guseynov.
"He is one of the most talented people I know," said Elisey Babanov's mentor, Professor Sergey Leonidovich Dorensky of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, speaking with genuine admiration in one of his interviews.
Elisey Babanov began his music education at the age of 7, enrolling in the school-lyceum of the Novosibirsk Conservatory in 1991 and graduating from the Special Music School of the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1998 (under Professor E.V. Shishko). In 2003, he completed his studies at the Moscow State Conservatory (under Professor S.L. Dorensky). In 1997, he became a laureate of the 2nd International S.V. Rahmaninov Competition in Moscow, and in 2002, he won the second prize at the International Piano Competition in Japlin, USA.
Babanov has performed in concert halls in Greece, Scotland, Finland, Norway, the United States, and Spain, as well as in Russia, including the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the St. Petersburg Chapel, the Moscow Conservatory, and other regional philharmonics. He has collaborated with conductors such as Alexander Chernushenko, Enkhe, Alexander Vedernikov, and others. He is a member of the jury for the music competition within the framework of the annual International Arts Festival "Sounds of the Dutar" named after Nury Halmametov.
On this evening, the audience will experience the contrast between the works of Alexander Scriabin and Mamed Guseynov. In Scriabin's Eighth Sonata, the most expansive of all his sonatas, one can hear tragic emotions, while the Tenth Sonata radiates light and hope, creating a unique atmosphere of emotional fluctuations.
The second part of the program features works by Mamed Guseynov. His six "Balkan Sketches" are youthful compositions full of freshness and sincere emotion. In contrast, "Sulamith's Dreams" – an intermezzo from the opera "Solomon", a piano version of a symphonic composition from 2024, immerses the listener in a more complex musical palette. These pieces harmoniously complement the overall mood of the concert, creating a dialogue between youth and maturity, tragedy and optimism, which the composers sought to express in their music, reflecting the depths of the human soul.
"Balkan Sketches" is a collection of piano pieces created by Mamed Guseynov in the city of Balkanabat, located in western Turkmenistan at the southern foot of the Big Balkan mountain range. In 2018, this collection was published in a large edition in Moscow, and its works quickly gained popularity, entering the repertoire of many pianists. Among the fantasy pieces included in the collection are works such as "Attack", inspired by V.V. Mazurovsky's painting "The Attack of the Tekin Horse Regiment on the Austrian Infantry", as well as "Eastern Tale", "Rhapsody", "Impulse", "Poem", and "Inspiration", created based on the "Destan of Shasenem and Garyp".
The concert is held with the support of the Sound of Dutar Foundation for the Development of National Culture and Arts. The performance will begin at 7:00 PM. The A.N. Scriabin Memorial Museum is located at 11 Bolshoy Nikolopeskovsky Lane, Moscow.
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