Dec. 8 Concert Commemorates Music of Famous Composer

Contact: Karen Cole, 581-4704; George Manlove, 581-3756

ORONO — The melody for the first piece to be performed Thursday, Dec. 8 at the University of Maine in a concert commemorating the life and works of composer Iosif Andriasov came to him in a dream 50 years ago.

Originally a piece for flute and piano, Andriasov rearranged it several times to suit different performance scenarios, one for flute and string orchestra and another for viola and piano, this titled “Musical Sketch for Viola and Piano, Opus 4A.

UMaine music professor Anatole Wieck will perform the piece and other music by Andriasov when he performs with several friends, including Andriasov’s son, pianist Arshak Andriasov, and violinist-violist and former student of Andriasov, Victor Romasevich. Wieck, an accomplished violinist and violist who has performed and taught throughout North and South America and Europe, also studied with Andriasov after Wieck graduated from Julliard School of Music in New York City in the 1970s.

The evening begins at 7:30 p.m. in Minsky Recital Hall in the Class of 1944 Hall. Admission is $6 and students with a MaineCard are admitted at no cost.

Andriasov was a respected, award-winning composer, humanist and philosopher who lived from 1933 to 2000. In the 1960s, celebrated composer Dmitri Shostakovich said that Andriasov not only maintained his sense of harmony, but had added a new quality to harmony at a time “when the entire world lost a sense of harmony.”

Wieck, who considers Andriasov a genius, says the music for the program “is lofty and spiritual and will have an uplifting effect on the audience.”

Works to be played in ensembles consisting of piano and violin or viola, or both, include “Musical Sketch for Viola and Piano, Op. 4A,” “Concertino for Trumpet and Orchestra, Op. 14,” “Meditation for Viola and Piano, Op. 30E,” “Concertino for Clarinet and Symphony Orchestra, Op. 27,” “The Fallow-Deer” for Tenor and Piano, Op. 9,” “Sorrow in My Melody” for Tenor and Piano, Op. 11,” “Apple Tree” for Tenor and Piano, Op. 13,” “The Street Song” for Bass and Piano, Op. 10,” “Ave Maria,” “Duet for Soprano and Tenor with Piano,” “Passacaglia for Trumpet, Trombone and Organ, Op. 22B” and “To The Mother-Earth,” Op. 25.”

Following the concert, Andriasov’s widow, Marta Andriasova, will answer questions from the audience.

Marta Andriasova is a musicologist, teacher, music producer and founder and owner of the IMMA Publishing Company. She was born in Moscow and graduated from the Moscow Conservatory with honors, studying musicology. She was married to Iosif Andriasov for 37 years. Until 1978, Andriasova formerly taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Her research was published by the “Muzyka Press” and Moscow Conservatory Publications. She was not re-elected to teach at the conservatory for publicly refusing to attribute Iosif Andriasov’s philosophical ideas to Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Performer Victor Romasevich was born in Minsk, Belarus. Following his emigration to the United States in 1977, he became a violin and viola pupil of Iosif Andriasov. He was a winner of the Gina Bachauer Prize at the 1985 J.S. Bach International Competition, and from 1996 to 2003 was the concertmaster of the California Symphony Orchestra. He has performed as violinist, violist and keyboard player in various chamber music and SF Symphony concerts during the last 15 years.

Arshak Andriasov was born in 1980 in New York City and began to play piano at the age of three. By age six, he entered the Lucy Moses School of Music, began composing at 14 and studied with his father, Iosif Andriasov, and other gifted music instructors and composers. Arshak Andriasov also studied piano, ear training, solefege, harmony, theory and form analysis, as well as piano, orchestration, polyphony and conducting.

Since coming to the United States in 1979, Marta Andriasova has written many works, including “The Six Concerti Armonici are returned to their genuine author, the great Italian composer-violinist Pietro Locatelli.” Andriasova writes extensively on the music of her late husband. She is in the International Who’s Who in Music and Musicians’ Directory, Cambridge, England, and has won numerous awards, including the Fellowship from the Italian Government for Music Research, Milan, Italy.