Pianist to hit notes of freedom, courage, and love in concert
Tanya Bartevyan says her May 16 recital was inspired by “finding freedom, courage, and love in so many circles of my life.”
Not all solo artists soar into the celebrity stratosphere.
Classical pianist Tanya Bartevyan knows this firsthand. But the realization that her fame might not have been “as stellar as was expected of me” doesn’t cause her to “lose faith in my artistry,” she says.
For many artists, life gets in the way of other pursuits. Parenting, caring for aging parents from afar, and the experience of feeling alienated in her country of birth, Turkey, all presented Bartevyan with challenges.
But she persevered. The Acton resident calls her growth as an artist “continuous, unstoppable, and richly informed by all other life experiences.”
Part of what drives Bartevyan is the conviction that “music is healing. It speaks to the vibrations of our beings and allows us to process emotions in wordless, experiential ways.”
In a recital titled “Freedom, Courage, and Love” on May 16 at Trinitarian Congregational Church, she will perform American composer Florence Price’s “Piano Sonata in E Minor,” Beethoven’s “Pathetique Sonata,” selections from Schumann and Chopin, and an improvisation.
The event is sponsored by Concord250 and supported in part by the Acton Cultural Council.
A ‘silenced minority’
Having started her musical studies at age 3, Bartevyan went on to earn degrees from Harvard University and the New England Conservatory of Music, and she has worked in musical composition and orchestral conducting.
She has performed in major Boston venues including Jordan Hall, the Gardner Museum, Harvard, and on GBH radio, as well as in Switzerland, Spain, France, Canada, and Turkey.
The Boston Arts Diary, reviewing one of her prior Acton concerts, described Bartevyan as playing “with a generous spirit, full of grace, lyricism, and attention to musical phrasing in a way that invites her listeners into the stories behind the notes.”
Bartevyan says the title of her upcoming recital was inspired by her experience of “not belonging and belonging, and of finding freedom, courage, and love in so many circles of my life, including my Acton friends.”
Price was the first African American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer and to have a composition played by a major orchestra.
Performing Price’s compositions has been “personally extremely meaningful for me,” Bartevyan says, noting that as an Armenian in Turkey, “I was a silenced minority member in my country of birth.”
The sonata, on which Bartevyan has been working for over a year, “combines masterful romantic classical musical language with deeply evocative resonances of African American musical traditions,” she says. “It is an absolutely gorgeous piece.”
The concert is on Friday, May 16, at 7:30 p.m. at Trinitarian Congregational Church, 54 Walden Street. Admission is free, but donations are welcome. A reception will follow the concert.
