"Anyuta - Pas de Deux - Adagio" - Valery Gavrilin
The "Pas De Deux" is from "Anyuta Ballet" by the Russian composer, Valery Gavrilin. This video is an excerpt from the "Anyuta Suite" from a live performance of the American premiere at the final concert of the 2014 Salkind International Piano Duo Festival - "A Baltic Voyage" at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco. The choreography is by Tiit Helmets (San Francisco Ballet) and the score for piano duo was arranged by the distinguished Latvian pianist, Raffi Kharajanyan and performed by The Angelo Piano Duo. The principal dancers featured in the Pas de Deux are JoAnn Sundermeier (Anyuta) and Joshua Reynolds (the Student Lover) from Smuin Ballet.
Valery Gavrilin (1939 – 1999)
Russian composer, Valery Gavrilin was an Honored Artist of Russia, a People’s Artist of the USSR and a recipient of the USSR State Prize. Considered one of the last great Russian classical composers, Gavrilin was born in 1939 in Vologda. His musical life started in Vologda but flourished in St. Petersburg. Gavrilin’s life was immersed in the poetry and tragedies of Russia. He synthesized the simplicity of Russian folk songs with academic sophistication and brought more romanticism to his musical expression. While part of the broadly described Slavophile tradition, he stood alone in modern Russian music. Prominent composer, Vladimir Rubin said. “He was not like anybody else - neither in his intonation, nor in the form, nor in the outlook. He had an outstandingly bright melodic talent and a new voice, which happens so rarely.” Rubin described Gavrilin as one of the major artists in 20th-century music because, like Rachmaninoff, he was traditional and innovative at the same time. One of his three ballets, Anyuta, was written at the request of the Russian ballet stars, Yekaterina Maximova and Vladimir Vasiliev in 1982, and it became widely known in Russia from its long run at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. A large portion of the music from the Anyuta Ballet has been transcribed for piano duet by the renowned Latvian pianist, Raffi Kharajanyan in a piano cycle, entitled, "Sketches." Sfmf commissioned Kharajanyan to arrange Gavrilin’s exquisite "Adagio" - the Pas de Deux from "Anyuta" for the American premiere of the "Anyuta Suite" at the 5th Salkind Festival – "A Baltic Voyage."