Local pianist's student makes 'personal and diplomatic breakthrough'

12/21/2006
Times Community Newspaper
By: Susan Anspach

Twenty fingers flew across two sets of facing keyboards against a backdrop of organ pipes that stretched to the ceiling.

In a concert hall in Yerevan, Armenia, an enlarged image of Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness smiled down on the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra's featured piano duo, Martin Berkofsky and Atakan Sari, the first Turkish musician to ever solo with the ensemble.

"There are just a boatful of articles on this coming from Armenia," classical pianist and musicologist Martin Berkofsky said. "The effect and reaction was the greatest reward."

The performance by the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, held Nov. 24 in the nation's capital, featured Hovhaness's Symphony No. 50 "Mount St. Helens," Beethoven's "Choral Fantasy," Hovhaness's Magnificat for choir and four soloists and his Concerto for two pianos and orchestra. Seated across from one another at the stools of their interlocking instruments, Berkofsky of Casanova, 65, and 25-year-old Atakan Sari of Izmir played the piece to an audience of thousands in the Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall.

The reception, say the two musicians, was unlike anything else.

"The clapping just went on and on," said Berkofksy. "There were people coming up to me afterwards, telling me that with music, there is no race, no nationality ... (Sari) carried himself off with absolute dignity, making a personal and diplomatic breakthrough of the whole thing."

"It was honoring," said Sari in a recent interview. "It was bringing the music back to its own land, so to speak."

The teacher-student protege pair first recorded the concerto in Moscow in 2003, then performed it there in 2004 in Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, where Armenian diplomats heard the piece and invited the two to play in Yerevan.

"The idea was basically to establish a cultural bridge between these two countries," Sari explained. "It was the best of all performances. I believe the crowds really enjoyed it."

He added, "Some people in Turkey were against me going there. But I feel that one should take risks, and I was talking to Berkofsky every day almost about what we could do with our playing. I didn't have any fear."

Hovhaness, who wrote 67 symphonies before passing away in 2000, gave the Concerto for two pianos to Berkofsky in the 1970s.

"I had tried to put it on with so many other people," said Berkofsky, who noted earlier that he had been waiting for the right kind of person and musician with whom to premiere the piece. "This just happened to be the right set of circumstances. It took me 30 years of broken promises and failed missions to actually perform it."

Berkofsky, who himself had never before played with the Armenian Philharmonic prior to last month, was first introduced to Sari in Turkey by a former student at one of his international master classes. Of the 25 piano pupils who passed through the classes in the six seasons Berkofsky organized them, the student who best embodied the universal ideals Berkofsky embraces was Sari, the musicologist claimed.

"I organized these master classes here with the hope of not just developing young pianists, because frankly, anyone can do that, but of developing young pianists with the right character," he explained.

In 2000, then again in 2001, Berkofsky invited the young musician to play in Warrenton, the site of further classes. Soon afterwards, Sari was accepted to the Manhattan School of Music, from which he graduated with his bachelor's degree last February.

"Berkofsky," said Sari, "was always my favorite pianist. My dad taught me piano from an early age, but didn't want me to continue studies because of this preoccupation he had with the idea that's it's hard to find a job as a pianist unless you are a soloist."

For a brief period, Sari focused more on the viola than the piano.

"But then I heard (Berkofsky's) Franz Liszt recording," he recalled. "I was listening to him over and over again. Eventually he came to Turkey, and I was able to study under him."

Pausing for a moment of reflection upon his own story, he added, "it's pretty amazing, actually."

Sari is currently enrolled in a graduate assitanceship program at Ithaca College in New York, where he plans on earning his master's in music by 2008.

"He's trying to organize a night of all-Armenian music there with the Cornell Orchestra," Berkofsky said with a touch of pride.

A principle reason behind Berkofsky's enthusiasm is his personal interest in Hovhaness's work. A self-proclaimed advocate of the composer, he is currently working toward the construction of the Alan Hovhaness International Research Center in Yerevan, construction of which has already begun. Berkofsky estimates that 10 percent of the requisite funds have been raised so far. There is not yet a projected date of completion for the museum.

"I have this crazy confidence that you can start with nothing and make it happen," said Berkofsky. "But I've always believed in the impossible."

He noted that he's eager to return to Armenia to perform in the near future, as well as track the progress of Sari's own career as a pianist.

"I'm so happy to see he's developing not only as a fine professional musician but also as a fine diplomat that we strive to find in music," he said. "A Turk being applauded in Armenia ... that's unheard of."

E-mail the reporter: sanspach@timespapers.com

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.