This month Carnegie Hall had to set up five rows of stage seats to meet the demand for the Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin’s much-anticipated solo recital. So it was unusual to see empty seats in the hall for his appearance on Tuesday night. But this was an unusual and intensely meaningful occasion.

Mr. Kissin took part in “With You, Armenia: A Concert to Commemorate the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide.” Sponsored by the Yerevan Perspectives International Music Festival, the event was part of an international tour featuring the impressive Hover State Chamber Choir, founded by Sona Hovhannisyan, who conducted the impressive 25-voice ensemble in the rewarding first half of the program. There were arrangements of Armenian folk songs and liturgical works, several contemporary selections, a Britten carol and the world premiere of a choral setting of Psalm 3 by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki composed in remembrance of the genocide.

After intermission, Mr. Kissin played four substantive Chopin works, including the Fantasy in F minor and Scherzo No. 2.

The tour commemorates the deportations and massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire starting in 1915. By the end some 1.5 million Armenians were killed. Despite a consensus among historians that the killings amounted to genocide, Turkish leaders reject that characterization and call them a tragic unplanned result of war.