On learning from a master: an interview with pianist Anna Peletsis
Blog post by Chris Maskell:
Since she became part of the faculty of the Schulich School of Music in 1992, ten of Professor Marina Mdivani’s students have won the McGill Concerto Competition. The most recent of these, Anna Peletsis, shares an interesting parallel with Mdivani’s past – both attended the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and eventually relocated to Canada.
The school links both Mdivani and Peletsis to a long teaching tradition that dates back to the 19th century. Mdivani described her own musical upbringing through the “Soviet” system of education, which she explained “implies solid professional training from a young age. My teachers from Tbilisi, Georgia as well as from Moscow, Russia in their turn studied with such eminent musicians as Godowsky, Ziloti, Leshetizky, Rosina and Iosif Levine. After all, the roots of my school go back to Franz Liszt.”
Peletsis, now a fourth-year D.Mus. student at Schulich, took a slightly different path, attending England’s Royal College of Music after graduation from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
However, relocating to Montreal to study with Mdivani proved to be a logical next step for her. “It is a wonderful chance for me to develop as a musician as well as to benefit from the rich cultural life both within the Schulich School and in the city of Montreal. Professor Mdivani is a very inspiring and supportive teacher who has an outstanding experience in both the performance and pedagogy fields. It is a big privilege for me to learn from her and to be a part of her family-like studio community.”
The opportunity to learn from Mdivani is also paying off in unforeseen ways. As winner of the 2015-2016 McGill Concerto Competition, Peletsis is set to perform Aram Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto in D-flat Major with the McGill Symphony Orchestra (MGSO) this weekend, and as it happens, her teacher knew the composer on a first-name basis. “Prof. Mdivani knew a number of eminent composers of the 20th century personally, including Aram Khachaturian, and she worked closely with the composer himself. Therefore I was lucky to get her advice on the style and interpretation of the concerto.”
Considerable preparation for Friday and Saturday’s performances also allowed Peletsis to share some parting insights into the concerto’s construction and historical background. “The concerto has the Armenian folk spirit as well as some modernistic features in its rhythmic organization. Also I believe that the fact that it was written in 1936 in Soviet Russia under Stalin dictatorship bears a certain socio-cultural influence, so that one can hear moments of darkness and horror in its extensive cadenzas.”
“The orchestration is also quite imaginative, involving a rare timbre of flexatone in the second movement which gives it a very special flavour. Overall I find the concerto’s colour and emotional palette very rich, and I feel very excited to perform this piece with MGSO under Maestro Hauser.”
