Vache Sharafyan /composer/

THE STRAD, May 2012 by JOANNE TALBOT
...use of harmonic clusters colors Vache Sharafyan's Suite, which with its ingenious allusions to the harmonic patterns and dance forms of the Baroque travels through a kaleidoscope of iridescent timbres...

Equally enthralling is Sharafyan's arrangement of Komitas's Krunk (Crane) for duduk, piano and cello. As in the Suite, tonally conventional elements co-exist with the oscillating pitches and clusters of Sharafyan's harmonic language to magical effect.

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By STEVE SMITH December 19, 2011 (after the concert played by Colin Jacobsen, Nick Cords, Edward Arron, Andrew Armstrong at Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York)

.... And all of the string players confidently handled unconventional intonation in Mr. Sharafyan's Adumbrations of the Peacock, a stark, mysterious and ultimately majestic concatenation of broken-bell piano chords, tremulous melodies and quivering textures.

THE BOSTON GLOBE In season finale, BMOP charts the Armenian experience; by By Matthew Guerrieri Globe Correspondent / May 27, 2008
Vache Sharafyan's "Sinfonia No. 2 un poco concertante," a BMOP commission and world premiere, takes that essence as its starting point. Melodies erupt into dense, slow-shifting harmonic clouds; a repetitive figure builds into crashing waves of multitudinous, Ivesian dissonance. A solo duduk, the Armenian folk oboe (pre-recorded for this concert), spins periodic arabesques, the instrument's microtonal inflections transmuted in the orchestra. Sharafyan creates complex, deliberate, ultimately captivating grandeur - artistic director Gil Rose led a terrific, vivid performance.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE Music review, The Silk Road Ensemble at Chicago Orchestra Hall
Wednesday, December 18, 2002, by John von Rhein,
..."But the most wonderful piece on the program was "The Sun, the Wine, and the Wind of Time" (1998) by the Armenian composer Vache Sharafyan. The score derived much of its ineffable sadness from the duduk, an oboe-like instrument whose quivery, throaty sounds were framed by piano (Joel Fan), violin (Colin Jacobsen) and cello (Yo-Yo Ma). The seamless evolution of moods and texture, from soft, somber lines made up of pained intervals, to more violent outbursts, back to mournful lines, made it entirely absorbing to the ear and mind..."

PITTSBURGH POST GAZETTE Music Review: New music group attains world-premiere nirvana
Monday, August 05, 2002 by David diAngelo,
..."The evening's gem, though, was the Sharafyan. Without overtly referencing Vivaldi, this "Four Seasons" uses the calendar year as a metaphor for a circle of life. It began with "Summer" (with the performers bathed in harsh red lights) and cycled through death in "Winter" and rebirth in "Spring....

PITTSBURGH LIVE, By Mark Kanny, TRIBUNE-REVIEW CLASSICAL MUSIC CRITIC, Monday, August 5, 2002
Vache Sharafyan's "The Four Seasons" was the significant world premiere, including Armenian poetry as a prelude to each of the four movements Sharafyan's language includes remarkable solo writing ... The composer is not afraid of dissonance, and the furious intensity he achieves serves clear narrative intent, including real satisfaction. "The Four Seasons" required extra performers, including the first Pittsburgh residents to play with the group this season: violist Paul Silver and bassist John Moore from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and percussionist P.J. Gatch.

SALISBURY JOURNAL, REVIEW: The Hilliard Ensemble, 29th May 2013, by Sarah Collins
In the second half, the penultimate work by Vache Sharafyan had such an intensely spiritual quality, one could almost imagine the Hilliards wearing robes and living in a closed order while singing their sublime music.