12–25
August
Yerevan · Armenia
Yerevan · Armenia
Yerevan · Armenia
Armenian State Symphony Orchestra
Gergely Madaras is Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège since 2019. He has previously held positions as Chief Conductor of the Savaria Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Orchestre Dijon Bourgogne.
Having forged strong professional relationships throughout Europe, Gergely regularly appears as a guest conductor with orchestras including the BBC Symphony, Hallé, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Maggio Muiscale Fiorentino, the Netherlands, Oslo and Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestras as well as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Academy of Ancient Music. Further afield, he has appeared with the Melbourne and Houston Symphony orchestras.
Gergely maintains a close relationship with new music and has collaborated with composers George Benjamin, Péter Eötvös, György Kurtág, Tristan Murail, Luca Francesconi, Philippe Boesmans and Pierre Boulez, for whom he served as assistant conductor at the Lucerne Festival Academy between 2011-2013.
Equally established in the operatic repertoire, he has appeared at the English National Opera, Dutch National Opera, Hungarian State Opera and Grand Théâtre de Genève. Future plans include his debut at La Monnaie in Brussels.
Born in Budapest in 1984, Gergely first began studying folk music with the last generation of authentic Hungarian Gipsy and peasant musicians at the age of five. He then went on to study classical flute, violin and composition, graduating from the flute faculty of the Liszt Academy in Budapest, as well as the conducting faculty of the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where he studied with Mark Stringer.
Italian pianist Vanessa Benelli Mosell is a rising star on the international music scene.
She now has eight albums releases for DECCA CLASSICS. Known for her performances of Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke, she was invited by the composer to study under him: "She has the power to let people appreciate my music”.Since becoming a key figure in the music of Stockhausen, she has had collaborations with many leading contemporary composers including George Benjamin, Hugues Dufourt, Stefano Gervasoni, Martin Matalon and Marco Stroppa.
Vanessa Benelli Mosell began her comprehensive musical studies at the age of three. At seven years old she was admitted at the International Piano Academy in Imola.In 2007 she entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory before pursuing her studies at the Royal College of Music in London. As a conductor, she led prestigious orchestras like the Divertimento Ensemble, the Leipziger Symphonieorchester, the United Europe Symphony Orchestra, the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, the Witold Lutoslawsky Chamber Philharmonic,the Wiener Kammer Orchester and many others.
In 2019 she obtained second place in the European Competition of Female Conductor Mawoma - Maestra in Vienna.
Emerging from a group of devotees and enthusiasts of classical music, the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra was created by Sergey Smbatyan, the present Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the orchestra. From the very onset of its existence, the orchestra has been home to bright and energetic musicians, assembled around the shared vision of amplifying the cultural awareness in Armenia and elevating the spiritual excellence of human nature by the power of classical music. The orchestra performs over 50 concerts annually, with a rich and multifarious repertoire covering multiple music genres and performance formats.
It has been profiled a multitude of times with such world-class composers as Krzysztof Penderecki, Sir Karl Jenkins, Giya Kancheli and Tigran Mansuryan as well as a number of highly distinguished performing artists. The Armenian State Symphony Orchestra has a history of close relationships with world-scale artists such as Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Spivakov, Maxim Vengerov, Denis Matsuev, Vadim Repin, Vag Papian, Boris Berezovsky, Zakhar Bron and others.
The Armenian State Symphony Orchestra has been hosted by many reputable concert halls around the world, including Opera Garnier (Paris), Konzerthaus (Berlin), Dr. Anton Philipszaal (Hague), Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and the Great Hall of Conservatory (Moscow), Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg), Royal Theatre (Madrid), Dubai Opera House and others.
A remarkable chapter in the history of the orchestra was the 2020 European Tour with the renowned violin virtuoso and the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra’s Artist-in-Residence Maxim Vengerov, with brilliant performances hosted on famous stages around Europe - Berliner Philharmonie, Vienna's Musikverein, London's Barbican Center, Prague's Dvorak Hall, Salzburg's Grosses Festspielhaus and Moscow's Zaryadye Concert Hall.
Aside from the extensive concert activity in Armenia and overseas, the orchestra also enjoys recognition and is highly esteemed for its increasing role in educating young people in Armenia. Since 2018, in the framework of DasA educational-cultural project the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra and Sergey Smbatyan have been sparking interest and liking for classical music in high-school students across Armenia, with an attempt to galvanize a larger movement for cultivating noble insights and taste for classical music among the young generation.
A number of orchestra’s concerts have been broadcast by Medici.tv, EuroNews, and Classic.fm. In 2019, a documentary was released by Mezzo TV, featuring Sergey Smbatyan and the history of the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra.
