BIOGRAPHY
“…rarely have I heard such a lesson in interpretative grace…Rubén Yessayan kew how to play the piece in a tender and exquisite manner, falling in love with it and making us witness the miracle of its creation in a cold and grey afternoon…a pianist who presented a varied program, quite like a mosaic, and transported us with the magic of his interpretation…thanks particularly to his interpretative quality, his good taste and wise talent…” (Ideal de Granada – J. A. Lacarcel – “When the piano becomes poetry”)
“…his recent recording with the Verso label rendering the first book of Preludes on the Debussy Year, displays an unorthodox and imaginative program – Book I from Préludes and Children´s Corner – which rivals in freshness and poetic gestureswith the Debussy of Crossley or Lubimov , revealing at the same time the major talent of a multifaceted player, open and demanding” (Diverdi Magazine – David Rodríguez Cerdán)
Ruben Yessayán was born in Madrid in 1978 of Armenian and Spanish descent. He began his musical studies at the age of eight. He obtained his professional title through the Arturo Soria Conservatory, studying piano with Rafael Solís and harmony with Enrique Igoa. In 1998 he joined the Manhattan School of Music in New York, where he studied piano with Nina Svetlanova and chamber music with Isidore Cohen. He obtains a Bachelor´s degree in 2002 and a Master in 2004. In addition to the piano, his broad musical interests have led him to carefully study some subjects such as orchestration with Giampaolo Bracali and formal analysis with Dr. Nils Vigeland and Dr. Reiko Fueting with special emphasis on the music of our time.
His career has taken him through various stages of Europe, Africa and the US, where he has always shown seriousness in his interpretations and a very personal musicality that has provided him with the publics favor. In addition to numerous awards his recording work has given him good reviews, especially with his last album dedicated to armenian music. The Eternal Song, a musical journey through the armenian spirit, is a collection of armenian classical music for piano as well as the pianist´s own arrangements of popular music for trio, and has been awarded the silver medal of the Global Music Awards for best album and instrumentalist. Also this last record has been included in the soundtrack of a documentary on the armenian diaspora, La Sombra de Ararat. In 2018 he will extend his record collection with new albums, including another one with music by Debussy, whose first album in 2012 awarded him great success.
In addition to piano, Ruben Yessayan has proven to be a versatile artist expanding his fields to composition, pedagogy and management of quality artistic projects. As a composer and arranger, his works have been premiered in Europe and the US. He is Artistic Director of the International Festival "Villa de Medinaceli" since 2007 and in 2013 he founded Musica Humana, an interdisciplinary project that is surprising for its original staging and for its interesting proposal towards a renewed concept of the concert experience within classical music.