CLASSICAL ENCOUNTERS presents Harout Senekermian, Pianist and Victor de Almeida, Viola

Donations: $40 Reserved, $30 General, $20 Students   
Food: A Delicious Buffet with Wine will follow the concert   
Program: Stravinsky – Suite Italienne from the Ballet Pulcinella arranged by Victor de Almeida/Nick Gianopoulos - Hatzlacha Rabbah/Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring arranged by Victor de Almeida   
For more Info (818) 343-3095 or visit: www.classicalencounters.org     
Background: Harout Senekeremian began playing the piano at the age of 4 with the encouragement of his father. His first teacher was Vatche Mankerian, who studied at the USC. At age nine, he began studying under the tutelage of Dr. Louise Lepley at the prestigious Colburn School of Performing Arts. There he played in many master classes with pianists Yefim Bronfman, Robert Levin & Earl Wild among others. In 1997, Senekeremian performed Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Glendale Symphony. He also actively collaborated in chamber music groups including a live performance of Brahm’s C Minor Quartet on 91.5 KUSC.   Upon high school graduation, Harout entered the Oberlin Conservatory of Music studying piano with Alvin Chow. In his freshman year at Oberlin he had played all of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes and his sophomore year he held a two-night concert performing all ten Scriabin Sonatas. At Oberlin, he performed Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto in C Minor, Op. 18 with the conservatory orchestra. Upon graduation, Harout began his masters under Arkady Aranov at the Manhattan School of Music.   Harout has taken a keen interest in non-traditional repertoire with a specialization in the solo piano music of French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan playing in concert all of the composers major works. He is also an eager participant in the performance of new music.   

Victor de Almeida, violist, was a double prize winner of the 2008 Primrose International Viola Competition, and performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Southern California and the world.  He has most recently been the Principal Violist of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Associate Principal Violist of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and the guest Principal Violist for the Los Angeles Opera. While studying at the Peabody Institute of Music of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, he was the Principal Violist of the Annapolis Symphony and a regular substitute violist with the Baltimore Symphony.
Mr. Almeida was born into a Brazilian and American musical family in Adelaide, Australia where his parents were the Principal and Assistant Principal cellists of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and began playing violin and piano at the age of three.  He is completing his debut recording of his arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” and “Suite Italienne” for Viola and Piano with pianist Harout Senekerenian with the sponsorship of the Stravinsky Foundation. He is also an avid collector of viola music and takes pride in performing those rare selections