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Levon Eskenian: Giving Voice to the Sacred Lineage of Armenian Music

by Nenad Georgievski
June 15, 2025

It is not often you come across a musician whose work feels like a bridge--between cultures, centuries, and inner worlds. Levon Eskenian, the Armenian musician and artistic director behind the Gurdjieff Ensemble, is one of those rare figures. Through his thoughtful arrangements and deep cultural understanding, he has led the Ensemble in reimagining the music of Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff and Komitas--not as museum pieces, but as living, breathing works that still resonate today. Over the past decade and a half, ...

Album Review

The Gurdjieff Folk Instruments Ensemble: Komitas

Read "Komitas" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
December 21, 2015

When Armenian arranger and composer Levon Eskenian took on to reimagine the music of Armenian mystic and philosopher Gurdjieff for the Gurdjieff Ensemble's debut record on ECM, he touched upon the wealth of melodies that Gurdjieff initially heard and was inspired by during the travels he undertook during his lifetime through the Caucasus, the Near East and Central Asia, and eventually were hummed to pianist Thomas de Hartmann. And it was Eskenian's fertile imagination, deep knowledge and understanding of both ...

Album Review

The Gurdjieff Folk Instruments Ensemble: Music of Georges I. Gurdjieff

by AAJ Italy Staff
May 23, 2012

Personaggio importantissimo per la rinascita mistico-spirituale nel ventesimo secolo, Georges Ivanovic Gurdjieff era presente nel catalogo ECM fin dal lontano 1980, quando Keith Jarrett incise la sua personale interpretazione di una selezione dei suoi inni sacri, composti a partire da melodie tradizionali raccolte nel corso di numerose peregrinazioni in medio oriente, e consegnate al mondo occidentale attraverso la trascrizione per piano realizzata da un musicista suo discepolo, Thomas de Hartmann. Quella pianistica è rimasta finora la versione più conosciuta e ...

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Album Review

The Gurdjieff Folk Instruments Ensemble / Levon Eskenian: Music of Georges I. Gurdjieff

Read "Music of Georges I. Gurdjieff" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
November 26, 2011

Philosopher, traveler, mystic, spiritual adventurer, teacher, musician and a fervent seeker of esoteric knowledge, G. I. Gurdjieff and his legacy are still of interest to many. His early years shrouded in mystery, he wandered through Central Asia and Middle East while still a young man, absorbing the spiritual and philosophical ideas of the religions he encountered, before making his way to the west, where he began formulating a synthesis (The Forth Way) of what he had learned using a series ...