Your trusted source

World famous American actor, producer, director and scriptwriter John Malkovich has arrived in Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan early Monday to attend the solemn opening ceremony of the 5th Aram Khachaturian International Festival.

The Hollywood star will perform at Aram Khachaturian Grand Concert Hall with the State Youth Orchestra of Armenia under the baton of Sergey Smbatyan at the opening of the festival.

Malkovich is set to perform a chapter from Ernesto Sabato’s “On Heroes and Tombs” novel jointly performed with the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra by Alfred Schnittke, one of the most eminent musical figures of the second half of the 20th century. The soloist pianist is Anastasya Terenkova.

John Malkovich performed the mentioned work for the first time in Seoul (2015) and later on in Buenos Aires (2016), the actor told a news conference today.

“I have used an adopted chapter from Ernesto Sabato’s “On Heroes and Tombs” novel in the text. The part that I have taken is called ‘Report on the Blind’,” he detailed.

In John Malkovich’s words, he has already performed sight pieces with classical musicians and has had fantastic experiences, enjoying the collaboration with them.

“The music, on its own, has kind of universal power, especially live music and classical music,” the artist said.

Speaking about his choices of literary works and the worldwide interest towards literature, he said: “When I listen to a piece, I have to listen to it many-many times before I can say, ok, with that piece of music I think I will try to pair this text. The text cannot really compete with music, it kind of has to slide between music and complement music. It is a difficult task to pair the text with music. In a piece like this, your aim is to make the two forms of art complete each other.”

In response to a question which is the quarantine of eternity for good music, film or a work of art, the actor said: “Those works are eternal that deeply touch human beings.”