Today I was lucky to be present at Michel Legrand's concert at Aram Khachaturyan hall in Yerevan. I went there spontaneously, without planning, as my friend called me only an hour before the concert, telling that she's got an extra ticket. I bless that very moment for the excitement and feelings I'm having now.
I have a long-time passion for the movie scores, old and new... from Henri Mancini to Hans Zimmer, Craig Armstrong and Clint Mansell ... and for this the concert was perfect me. One of those performances where you forget where you are, what the date it is, all the fears and insecurities... detaching from reality you silently wish there was somebody dear's shoulder to lean on while listening to the sounds... Well.. this music was able to dig into the most concealed and inmost layers of my heart and bring out some memories and feelings I was trying hard to hide. It brought out a lot of love and tenderness. I couldn't stop smiling. I wanted to hug everyone :)
I was occasionally thinking about some of my friends and my mother who I wished were there enjoying it as much as I was doing.
Michel Legrand. Photo by Vahan Stepanyan / PanARMENIAN Photo
There were really very very smooth transitions from fugue to light jazz and I loved the harp!
Some of the songs were performed by Christiane Legrand, Michel's sister. God, she had a powerful voice!
Here's the famous
The windmills of your mind (Les Moulins De Mon Coeur)
and this one from
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg)
Everything about that concert was perfect. The hall was more than full, the audience was smart and conscious. When the concert was about to start, a perfect couple came and sat near me on the row.
The man was in his mid 40s or even 50s, so handsome and elegant, a bit of white hair, but still no signs of getting bald, no 30-week pregnant woman's belly (usual for successful Armenian men of his age). He was wearing a refined suit with a tie and you could read by his face that he's a successful businessman, excessively upright and life enjoying. His partner was a very attractive woman in a perfect shape (probably mid 30s, looking much younger, only the wrinkles on hands were giving away), wearing a strapless beautiful dress and a cute scarf of the same pattern as the dress tacked on an elegant purse. She had awesome peep toe heels on, sitting with straight back, hands on knees like in an illustration from an etiquette book. I couldn't take my eyes off of them. I wish I'd be like them when I get their age :)
I am full of love ♥
About Michel Legrand
Michel Legrand (born February 24, 1932 in Paris) is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist of French and Armenian descent.
Legrand has composed more than two hundred film and television scores and several musicals and has made well over a hundred albums. He has won three Oscars (out of 13 nominations) and five Grammys and has been nominated for an Emmy. He was twenty-two when his first album, I Love Paris, became one of the best-selling instrumental albums ever released. He is a virtuoso jazz and classical pianist and an accomplished arranger and conductor who performs with orchestras all over the world.
Legrand is known principally as a composer of innovative music for films, composing film scores (about two hundred to date) for directors Jean-Luc Godard, Richard Brooks, Claude Lelouch, Clint Eastwood, Robert Altman, and many others.
Michel Legrand on Wikipedia
Michel Legrand on IMDB
Listen to the previews of best movie scores by Michel Legrand
