KIRILL GERSTEIN & GURDJIEFF ENSEMBLE — Music in Times of War: Debussy & Komitas

The Armenian Gurdjieff Ensemble, most recently heard at the Pierre Boulez Saal in 2024, and pianist Kirill Gerstein present a musical double portrait of two composers who admired each other and were both deeply affected by the violent events of their time. Claude Debussy wrote some of his most forward-looking music in the midst of World War I. Pioneering Armenian ethnomusicologist Komitas Vardapet (1869–1935), revered today as the founder of his country’s school of classical music, never overcame the horrors he witnessed during the Armenian genocide. At the Pierre Boulez Saal, unexpected connections between these two artists will become apparent.