At the tender age of six Ilda started her career in singing at weekly church services in Istanbul. At 14 she became the Sayat Nova Choir’s youngest member. Before long, she was regularly performing as a soloist in the choir, which concentrated on secular and liturgical Armenian vocal music.

While completing a university course in economics, Ilda continued her singing and joined several choirs. Following that, she was admitted to the National Music Academy of the Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul, choosing opera as her main subject. During this period she also sang marriage services with the choir of the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral in Istanbul. At the same time she was a member of the Turkish Radio and Television Choir and the Ruhi Su Friendship Choir.
In the Netherlands, Ilda performed as a guest singer with the traditional music ensemble of the Komitas Music Academy of Yerevan, directed by Ardzas Woskanian; the concert took place in the Meervaart cultural centre in Amsterdam.

In the same city, she also sang in the Polo de Haas series in the Beurs van Berlage and the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal, accompanied by Polo de Haas on piano. She made several short appearances on Dutch radio and television with renderings of her Armenian repertoire. Towards the end of 1999 she presented a selection of Komitas’ songs in a concert organized by the Sayat Nova Choir in Istanbul in honour of Armenuhi Kevonian, entitled “Songs of Mush”.
Ilda regularly sings in venues all over the Netherlands as a soloist accompanied on the piano, recently with Liesbeth Spits. She advises choirs who wish to include Armenian music in their repertoire and coaches them at their rehearsals. As a teacher she also organizes a variety of workshops with her students each year.

Education and Experience

At the tender age of six Ilda started her career in singing at weekly church services in Istanbul. At 14 she became the Sayat Nova Choir’s youngest member. Before long, she was regularly performing as a soloist in the choir, which concentrated on secular and liturgical Armenian vocal music.

While completing a university course in economics, Ilda continued her singing and joined several choirs. Following that, she was admitted to the National Music Academy of the Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul, choosing opera as her main subject. During this period she also sang marriage services with the choir of the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral in Istanbul. At the same time she was a member of the Turkish Radio and Television Choir and the Ruhi Su Friendship Choir.
In the Netherlands, Ilda performed as a guest singer with the traditional music ensemble of the Komitas Music Academy of Yerevan, directed by Ardzas Woskanian; the concert took place in the Meervaart cultural centre in Amsterdam.

In the same city, she also sang in the Polo de Haas series in the Beurs van Berlage and the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal, accompanied by Polo de Haas on piano. She made several short appearances on Dutch radio and television with renderings of her Armenian repertoire. Towards the end of 1999 she presented a selection of Komitas’ songs in a concert organized by the Sayat Nova Choir in Istanbul in honour of Armenuhi Kevonian, entitled “Songs of Mush”.
Ilda regularly sings in venues all over the Netherlands as a soloist accompanied on the piano, recently with Liesbeth Spits. She advises choirs who wish to include Armenian music in their repertoire and coaches them at their rehearsals. As a teacher she also organizes a variety of workshops with her students each year.

Musique

agenda

recent

My first cd Izler/Hedker/Traces

 Izler / Hedker / Traces IZLER / HEDKER / TRACES  Ilda Simonian  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMnoOlJi5_M

Order by mail in Europe: info@simonian.nl

http://kalan.com/scripts/album/dispalbum.asp?id=4239

Here, in the country of my birth, my notebook full of song lyrics did not include a single song in my native Armenian until I was ten years old. Up to that point, I’d never heard a song in Armenian, because my mother and father were the children of one of the largest tragedies in history. For this reason, they did not know a single song in Armenian; not even our lullabies.

A cassette of Armenian music that came from abroad changed my world. I was amazed, and couldn’t hold back my tears of joy. Up to then I had heard no Armenian melody other than church hymns. I was amazed, because I was hearing an Armenian song for the first time. I was moved, and I cried; because my joy was more than my heart could contain. That joyful but also sad shock, experienced at that tender age, never left my mind. From that moment on, Armenian music became a part of my life.

When I was twelve, a chorus came from Istanbul to our village to hold auditions, and I became its youngest member. It affected me just like water on a wilting flower. From that day on, I became one with my songs; I’ll never stop singing them. I had the opportunity to learn our history, customs and traditions directly from the songs of the kusans. But it went farther than that: music became my means of expressing myself, of communicating. Music became the light that illumined the way towards toward the awareness, formation and discovery of my own identity.

The songs on this album are those which I learned I learned and fell in love with as I encountered them on my musical journey from Istanbul to Hayasdan, in places like Erzurum and Adana.

In 2006, as a bonus track for recordings I made in Hayasdan under the direction of Norik Davtyan, I recorded “Yes Blbul Em” and “Oror,” in Kalan Müzik’s studio in Istanbul, accompanied by Ertan Tekin on duduk. It was the first recording of these songs accompanied solely by duduk. Lastly, in memory of Hrant Dink, we recorded “Sbidag, Badankov A?vanin,” with words and music by Mikail Aslan.

So here, like a “first bouquet” of Armenian songs, I present you with Hedker. 

03-05-2009