Piano instructor releases album inspired by Viennese composer

April 20, 2015

Audrey Jensen
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Hoping students will see music as a form of emotion and spirituality, piano class instructor Angelina Gadeliya released her album “Music of Tribute: Schnittke and his Ghosts,” on April 14 on iTunes and Amazon.

This four year project revolves around Soviet composer Alfred Schnittke. Schnittke focused his music on previous Vienna composers Mozart, Anton Webern, Shostakovich and Scriabin.

“He started his music education in Vienna and said that every moment he spent in Vienna he felt like he was a link in a chain of composers,” Gadeliya said.

“The past to him represented a world of ever-present ghosts. He wasn’t allowed to leave the Soviet Union for 30 years. Haunted by his time in Vienna, he drew inspiration from classical Viennese composers.”

Gadeliya considers Schnittke to be underplayed and one of the greatest musical prophets of the 20th century. She discovered his music in 1999 and began to perform solo pieces. Gadeliya also said that Schnittke wrote music that integrated many styles between the 17th and 20th centuries.

“You hear all these musical references to other composers hundreds of years ago. He incorporates all these infl uences and inspirations from centuries ago. His music sounds as if the ghosts of composers are living in it. They were very much present and alive in his mind,” she said.

Gadeliya began to study music and piano in the country of Georgia at the age of five and moved to the United States with her family at 11 years old with no money, no piano and no music teachers until she went to college.

She believes the most challenging part about being an artist is that music is undervalued in American society.

“Really famous pianists in Europe will play 30 encores, but in Carnegie Hall they will only play five or six encores,” she said.

She added that in Colorado there are many people who have not heard of New York schools such as Julliard or the venue Carnegie Hall and that teaching of the arts in the U.S. is limited.

“Teaching becomes a challenge because there’s so little culture in education in the school system, the arts are kind of missing,” she said. “It becomes frustrating to see how little value is placed on art, the emotional and spiritual education of a person and knowing you have a soul that you can express through music.”

Gadeliya graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, The Juilliard School, Mannes College of Music, Stony Brook University and studied at CU-Boulder.

Although she has studied music and piano for 32 years, Gadeliya said what is nice about music is that you never master it.

“You’re only ever reaching for [perfection], you never really arrive. Humans are always full of imperfections, but we’re never going to be machines,” she said. “If in your mind you think you have achieved that level you’re probably really far from it.”

Gadeliya has performed in multiple shows at Carnegie Hall and is now a part of Decoda, a continuing ensemble of 29 people. They perform around the world.

“We are the fi rst affi liate ensemble of Carnegie hall. We get continuing projects from them, and are sent all over the world to residencies and to participate in festivals,” she said.

Gadeliya will be performing at UCCS Peak Frequency performances. She will also record her upcoming album “Journey to freedom: 100 years of Ukrainian music” this summer.

Further information about upcoming concerts, projects and Gadeliya’s career can be found on her website http://www.angelinagadeliya.com/ and information about the Carnegie Hall ensemble Decoda can be searched at http://decodamusic.org/.

On May 7 there will be a CD release concert at 6:30 p.m. at the Mezzanine, located at 20 N. Tejon St., where Gadeliya will be performing p ieces from the album.