On 6. November, the Monday Concert will feature the world premiere of Airs Between, a new work by Petros Ovsepyan. Curator Helen Bledsoe tells how she met the Armenian-American composer during her studies:

“Petros and I studied at Indiana University, Bloomington at the same time. We met there in 1988, he was studying composition with Claude Baker and I was playing in the Contemporary Music Ensemble. Petros grew up in the former Soviet Union, so he spoke Russian. Since I was minoring in Slavic Studies, I felt honored when I could hang out with him and the other Russian-speaking students, they were very patient with my attempts to speak in Russian!

Years later I arrived in Amsterdam on my first day of classes and the first person I saw in the Cantine was Petros! It was completely unexpected to see a familiar face. We did a lot of catching up, and I finally got to know his music as a performer – first his IV for flute, clarinet and trumpet, and The C of Love for flute and guitar. In 2014 I premiered his Precipitate/Reciperated für Flöte here in the Studio at Musikfabrik.”

Helen Bledsoe