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Like the rest of the audience who will be at the Symphony of the Canyons concert Saturday night, Ara Sevanian has never heard Symphony No. 8 in A Major, a composition on the second half of the program.
But he knows its every note.
Sevanian, 80, plucked out each one on his upright Baldwin piano in his Newhall apartment. He scratched the melodies down on paper, painstakingly orchestrated measure after measure, and transcribed them into a 306-page score. Saturday, his Eighth Symphony will get its world premiere from 66 musicians under the baton of Robert Lawson.
It isn't the first time his compositions have had an orchestral reading. His "Symphonic Sketches" were played by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1972 under the direction of Soviet Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian, and later by the Van Nuys Civic Orchestra, now the San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra. His Symphony No. 3 was premiered by the Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra about six years ago.
Unlike most of Sevanian's compositions, which are inspired by Armenian folk melodies, his Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8 are influenced by the work of Beethoven--"the Bible of composers," Sevanian said. Beethoven's influences are audible in the four-movement Symphony No. 8, but Sevanian said he tried to maintain musical independence and give the piece Armenian character. He analogizes this way: "I put Beethoven's mask on my face, but I sing my song."
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The original of the two-volume score and his other compositions are...