The Gurdjieff Ensemble

The Gurdjieff Ensemble is one of the leading Ensembles of the world specializing in ancient and medieval music from the East, combining some of the leading traditional music practitioners of Armenia playing duduk, blul, saz, tar, kamancha, oud, kanon, santur, dap, tmbuk, dhol, pku, zurna, kshots and burvar.

Being founded by Armenian musician Levon Eskenian in 2008, The Gurdjieff Ensemble brings the piano music of the Armenian philosopher, author and composer Georges I. Gurdjieff back to its ethnic inspirational sources. The extraordinary pieces by Gurdjieff that Eskenian has collected have their roots in Armenian, Greek, Arabic, Assyrian, Kurdish, Persian and Caucasian folk and spiritual music, and the rearrangements were created with an eye towards preserving their authenticity. The Gurdjieff Ensemble now turns attention to the music of Armenian composer, ethnomusicologist, arranger, singer and priest Komitas. With Eskenian’s special focus on folk instrumentation and inspired arrangements the Ensemble illuminates the deep roots of Komitas’s compositions. The Gurdjieff ensemble now expands its repertoire with premieres of works collected by Bela Bartok and major European modern composers works commissioned for the Gurdjieff Ensemble and classical instruments or choir.

Edison Award-Winning, ECM Records’ recording artists who comprise The Gurdjieff Ensemble have successfully collaborated with many prestigious festivals and concert venues, touring in nearly 150 cities in 26 countries in Europe, Australia, Russia, the Middle East, North, and South America, among which are sold-out performances at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Boulez hall, the Holland Festival, the Bozar Center in Brussels, the Tonhalle in St.Gallen, Switzerland, the Gulbenkian hall in Lisbon, the Sala São Paulo in Brazil and numerous prestigious festivals such as the Holland Festival in the Netherlands, the Wege Durch Das Land, Lux Aeterna, Rudolstadt and Morgenland festivals in Germany, The Imago Dei in Austria, The Stanser Musiktage in Switzerland, the Mustonen Festival in Estonia, the Budapest Spring festival in Hungary, the Etnokrakow and Nostalgia Festivals in Poland, the Chicago World music festival in USA and many more.

These concerts have vividly demonstrated the ensemble’s appeal to varied audiences from early to modern classical music, from folk to jazz and world music.