Covas de Prata, the location of Quintinha da Música is clearly on the international classical music circuit. Our first concert this season was sponsored by the Russian Embassy in Lisbon and we heard two delightful and talented musicians from St Petersburg. Our second concert featured Irene Ainstein (piano) and Édua Zádory (violin) who had two standing ovations and they received similar appreciation at their performances in the Hungarian and Austrian Embassies in Lisbon.

Our third concert was to feature Lucjan Luc who is returning for the third time to play in the Algarve where he has a strong and deserved following. 

However, following an opportunity too good to miss, the cellist Varoujan Bartikian will join Lucjan. Varoujan and Lucjan, with Alexander Stewart, have recently performed as the Trio Aeternus in the Gulbenkian Concert Hall in Lisbon and in Istanbul.

Lucjan's solo programme will now be scheduled in 2016.

Varoujan Bartikian was born in Soviet Armenia, and at the age of six, began studying at the Tchaikovsky Specialized School for Music under professor Alexander Tchaushian and as a schoolboy he performed as a soloist in many cities of the ex-Soviet Union. At the age of 10 he was performing cello concertos and at the age of 14 played the Rococo Variations by Tchaikovsky with the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1977, he won first prize in the Transcaucasian Cello Competition, and later won second prize (with a special prize for playing the 24 Preludes by the Georgian composer Sulkan Tsintsadze) in the Soviet Union Cello Competition in Tbilisi (Georgia). In 1982 Varoujan Bartikian was one of the founding members of the Yerevan String Quartet which won the second prize in the Borodin competition in 1983 in Tallinn (Estonia).

After a year of teaching cello classes at the Komitas Conservatory of Yerevan, he left to join the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon where he has also played as a soloist, and has also recorded for the Portuguese classic radio network. In 1991 he formed the Bartikian Trio with the French pianist Michel Gal and the American clarinettist Esther Georgie, and from 2001 he has been the cellist of the Capela Quartet, and in 2005 together with the American violinist Peter DeVries and Portuguese pianist Filipe Pinto-Ribeiro he recorded Beethoven’s Triple Concerto. Today, as well as his role with Trio Aeturnus, Varoujan Bartikian is principal cellist of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, and teaches cello and chamber music at the Piaget Institute in Lisbon.

Lucjan Luc was born in Jaroslaw, Poland. He studied chamber music at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice under Professor Andrzej Jasinski and the composer and pianist Eugeniusz Kanapik and won a first class degree and a diploma with honours in piano.

While still a student he began to give solo recitals and chamber music concerts in Poland, the United Kingdom and Portugal and won first prize at the 14th Polish Piano Festival in Slupsk. He has appeared with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Katowice (Beethoven ́s 3rd Piano Concerto), the Oporto Classical Orchestra (Chopin ́s 1st Piano Concerto), Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra (Concertos by Bach, Gorecki, Paderewski and Symphonie Concertante Op.60 by K. Szymanowski).

Lucjan Luc has worked with Portuguese composer/conductor Ivo Cruz at the 9th International Music Festival in Macau, and conductors Michael Zlim and Emilio Pomarico and he has participated several times as a guest pianist at Contemporary Music Encounters at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.

He has performed over 200 chamber music recitals with the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra (1992-1996) in all parts of Portugal, and accompanied many soloists from the Gulbenkian Orchestra as well as the soprano Ana Madalena Moreira, with whom he recorded an album dedicated to Portuguese composers.

In Spain, he has performed at different music events and festivals with soloists Johannes Peitz (clarinet), soprano Carmen Solís, violinist Du Xuan, and the baritone Paolo Ruggiero. He has also appeared in Palau de la Música in Valencia (Spain) with the famous Chinese cellist Jian Wang and the saxophonist David Alonso. Lucjan Luc gave acclaimed solo recitals at the 9th Rafael Orozco Piano Festival, in Córdoba and more recently in 2012 at the 25th Contemporary Music Festival.

Programme