This week we are gearing up for an exciting event coming up at West Texas A&M University: the World Music Festival concert, which will take place on Sunday, April 12th at 3pm at Mary Moody Recital Hall on the WT Campus. Last year this festival focused on American music, but this year, the festival turns its attention to Armenia, the native country of the festival’s founder, Ms. Mila Abbasova!
The program presents music exclusively by Armenian composers performed by WT faculty and students. You can look forward to hearing Armenian melodies arranged for flute and harp performed by Dr. Jessica Schury Peckham and Dr. Jennifer Miller. Recent WT graduate soprano Kanani Crandall will be accompanied by Dr. Schury Peckham on flute to perform arrangements of several Armenian folk songs by John Hajje, a WT student in music composition. The WT Symphonic Band, under the direction of Mr. Don Lefevre, will perform Alfred Reed’s Armenian Dances, Part I before students from WT’s dance program perform “Spring” from Aram Khachaturian’s ballet “Gayane”.
The highlight of the program, though, will be a performance by Armenian pianist and composer Hayk Arsenyan. Arsenyan grew up in Armenia and made his debut performing his own Requiem for piano and orchestra with the Armenian Philharmonic. He currently teaches at the New York University Tisch School of Music, and we are delighted to feature recordings of his own compositions as well as music by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Padre Antonio Soler, and Federico Mompou on the show this week!
