May 2008   BMOP begins countdown to 2011 Hovhaness centennial celebrations

On May 23 the Boston Modern Orchestra Project presented Armenia Resounding: a Tribute to Composer Alan Hovhaness, the first in a series of concerts to honor the Boston-born composer.

The orchestra’s Artistic Director/Conductor, Gil Rose explained, “BMOP looks to publicly recognize Alan Hovhaness and encourage his increased presence in the collective memory as a serious and important 20th century composer”. Thanks to the support of an American Express Cultural Heritage grant, this concert marks the first stage of a multi-year project in preparation for the 2011 centennial celebration of Hovhaness's birth.

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is America’s foremost professional orchestra dedicated exclusively to performing and recording music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Thus, in connection with this vision and the half-Armenian ancestry of Hovhaness, this concert also premieres two BMOP-commissioned works from the Armenians Vache Sharafyan (b.1966) and Tigran Mansurian (b.1939).

The Hovhaness works featured are early Armenian-flavoured ones: the Armenian Rhapsodies 1, 2, & 3, each from 1944 and, to conclude the concert, the 1939 Exile Symphony which alludes to the tragic plight of Armenians in the early decades of the previous century.

The concert will be at the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, famous for its acoustics, intimacy, and beauty. Jordan Hall has been at the center of Boston’s musical life for over 100 years, and, as any Hovhaness aficionado will tell you, was the venue where the world first heard the up-and-coming composer conduct premiere performances of several works, such as the large piano concerto Arjuna (then called Ardos) in 1947.