Lush Duo for Piano and Bass by New York Based Composer and Pianist Hayk Arsenyan

New York based pianist and composer Hayk Arsenyan has appeared in numerous recitals throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas, in venues such as Carnegie Hall (New York), Salle Cortot (Paris), the Concourse (Sydney), Cadillac-Shanghai Concert Hall (China), Kumin Hall (Tokyo), Petranka Mozarteum (Prague), Auditorio Delibes (Valladolid), Dar-Al-Assad Opera House (Damascus), Sala Cervantes (Havana), MoBU (Sao Paolo), Tchaikovsky Hall (Moscow), Philippines National Museum (Bacolod), and televised recitals at the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago, the Phillips Collection Series in Washington DC and at the Nixon Presidential Museum in Los Angeles.

Matt Hare, D.M.A., is a prolific musician championing the double bass. As a performer/composer, he often presents solo recitals of his own compositions and arrangements. He recently premiered his orchestration of Hayk Arsenyan’s Stratum, with the University of California at Irvine’s Symphony Orchestra with Arsenyan and himself as soloists. As an educator, Hare is highly sought after to serve as guest clinician for schools around Southern California. He’s currently on faculty at the University of California at Irvine, Irvine Valley College, and Saddleback College. Hare is also the Founder/Director of Bass Forward, a non-profit 501c3 that hosts double bass events around Southern California. Bass Forward graciously loaned instruments to students whose school instruments were unavailable due to the pandemic lockdown. Based out of Southern California, Hare lives in Laguna Niguel with his wife Nadin and son, Emmett.

Lush harmonies and layered polyrhythmic phrases create a complex, textured soundscape, with virtuosic passages that showcase the broad capacities of the instruments and the performers. Hare’s deep, melancholic lines in the bass give way to Arsenyan’s delicate piano passages, making an ethereal splash of beauty that softens Hare’s dark, rich and commanding tone. Arsenyan’s haunting diminuendo at the end of the piece, made by plucking the piano strings, creates the sounds of church bells and evoke grief and the subtle resolve to live on. As per quote by Byron: “And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.” Audiences may wish to listen to the work over and over again. Stratum was published by Zimmerman Publications in Laguna Beach, California, in 2014. The same year it was premiered at the International Bass Convention in Fort Collings, CO, and toured in the cities of the United States and Canada.