The Magician

 

Vocabulary

 

magic	sorcerer	apprentice
vanish	passion	complicated
appear	mean (2)	on the road
wonder	audience	in front of
sleeve	roll (2)	roll up the sleeves
coach	vision	courtesy of
craft	caliber	as often as he can
wow	named	ever since
named	used to	dream (2)
junior	illusion	master (2)
meet	astound	country (2)
settle	priority	settle down
earn	trick (2)	committed
career	blood (2)	appear (2)
hope	end up	documentary

 

Video: Young Magician

 

Transcript

“My name is Tigran Petrosyan. I’m 14. I play guitar. And play soccer in a club.

….And I perform magic.”

And this sorcerer is no apprentice. Tigran’s passion for vanishing acts is of professional caliber.

“Magic is meant to astound people, and make smiles appear on their faces. I really enjoy performing in front of a big audience. And after the show they all wonder: how did he do that?

I find that really interesting.”

Time to roll up the sleaves for some coaching, curtesy of his big brother Zols. Tigran practices as often as he can — up to three hours a day before performances.

“Very good!”

“I practice for days and weeks…sometimes months if it’s a complicated trick. It takes time to perfect a trick until I can perform it.”

He learned his first magic trick at the age of four, and has been wowing crowds on stage since the age of six.

Last year he was named Germany’s best junior magician.

And he does have magic in his blood.

Both his parents are masters of illusion, and are themselves the product of performer families.

“My mother’s Russian, and my father’s from Armenia. We used to be on the road a lot. We had to change schools a lot because of my parents performances. I was always meeting new people and learning a lot. We traveled to a lot of different countries.”

The family finally settled down six years ago, near Ludwigshafen in western Germany — the kids’ schooling had to take priority.

Like Zols, Tigran wants to go to college after high school. But both brothers are committed to their craft.

“I’ll always perform magic. But I also want to have another profession that I can also earn money with.”

And Tigran already has a vision of what kind of career that might be.

My big dream is to be an actor…I’ve already appeared in a small documentary film. And I really hope I’ll end up acting.

 

Questions

1. Who is Tigran? He only performs magic. True or false?

2. Is he an amateur or is he a professional?

3. What do people in audiences think after the performance?

4. Tigran has natural talent; he has real, magical powers. What do you think?

5. He started performing magic recently. Is this right or wrong? Is he carrying on a family tradition? Is Tigran is the only one in his family who practices magic?

6. What nationality is Tigran? Where does he live now?

7. What are Tigran’s goals? What does he want to do in the future?

A. I have watched magic shows on TV. Yes or no? Have you attended live magic shows?

B. Who are or were some famous magicians?

C. Are there any magicians in your city or country?

D. Would you like to be a magician? What kind of magic would you perform?

E. I wish I had magical powers. Yes or no? What would you do if you had magical powers? If I could do magic, I would . . . . .

F. What will happen in the future?