Armenia comes the second at Junior Eurovision -2007 in Rotterdam

9 Dec. 2007
HULIQ

Armenia occupied the second position at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2007 held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Only one point did not suffice to gain victory. Maximum 12 points were given to Armenia by Georgia, Belgium, Russia, Romania, the Netherlands and Ukraine. Sweden and Greece gave 10 points, 7 points came from Belarus and 5 points  from Serbia.

Alexey Zhigalkovich from Belarus with the song S Druzyami (With Friends) won the 2007 Junior Eurovision Song Contest. - By Public Radio of Armenia

"AREVIK" was going to represent Armenia at Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2007 for the first time ever on December 8th, 2007 in Rotterdam (Netherlands)

Children’s and youth pop-folk ensemble "AREVIK" under the supervision of Armen Divanyan will perform a song at the Junior Eurovision. Music is written by soloist, 15 years old Mariana Javakhyan and lyrics by 13 years old Sargis Mzikyan. Soloists will be the author of the music and also Anahit and Christine from Septetino / both 10 years old/.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

A picture by an Armenian girl will be depicted on UN postal stamps.

MARIAM MARUKIAN To my mind, work will help people live fairly. That is why in my picture I depict people working in the garden. They have worked hard and their harvest is rich -- Mariam Marukian

Mariam Marukian second from left in the above picture, a 13 year-old girl from Armenia, won a UN competition called ‘We Can Eradicate Poverty’. The UN contest was held in some 60 countries and 12,000 children sent their pictures, including 475 pictures from Armenia. Ten of Armenian children’s pictures were included among best 100 works.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Graduate student performs sounds of home

June 6, 2007
Ball State Daily News, IN
Matt Erler

Armenian-born pianist hopes recital will help bridge cultural gap

Anna Vanesyan concentrates on the her playing during a rehearsal for her Doctor of Arts Recital. Vanesyan will perform "Festive" composed by Alexander Arutinan in collaboration with Arno Babjanianwill, accompanied by her instructor James Helton on the piano, along with Erwin Mueller and Cara Thornberry on percussion. The recital is at 8 p.m. Friday at Sursa Hall.

When Anna Vanesyan came to Ball State from Armenia in 2002, she was surprised to find that despite Muncie's cultural and geographic distance from her home country, students in the School of Music both embraced her culture and the music that came from it. Vanesyan was able to transition to the new country while resting in the comfort of familiar sounds.

"In the music school they are not only tolerant of other cultures, but want to go deep, and see other cultures and have more knowledge about other cultures," Vanesyan said. "I think that's very important for musicians." Friday, the Armenian-born Ball State student will present a series of compositions by Armenian composer Alexander Arutunian at 8 p.m. in Sursa Hall.

James Helton, associate professor of Music Performance, said the Armenian style of music required musicians who were adept at playing music from different cultures.

"Any time you play music from a different culture - all music has elements of its cultures - when you play music from other cultures you want to find ways to bring out that flavor. You come away with an idea of the flavor - like trying a different food, there's a certain kind of spice in it."

Despite the language barrier between the composer of the pieces and some of the performers, Vanesyan believes the spirit of the compositions won't be lost.

"They feel the spirit of Armenian music so well," Vanesyan said. "It doesn't matter that the composer that wrote this music speaks Russian or Armenian."

In addition to Helton's performance with Vanesyan, retired professor of music Mary Hagopian will sing a traditional Armenian lullaby.

Vanesyan hopes the performance will help illustrate that despite language barriers and cultural differences, people can unite. In many ways, Vanesyan said the recital is a way for Vanesyan to give back to the Ball State and Muncie community, as well as represent her country.

But on a broader level, Vanesyan believes that music can change the world. She repeatedly and steadfastly repeats this claim. She hopes that the recital will help.

"With music we can build understanding because music is the universal language," Vanesyan said. "Especially nowadays when we have wars and conflicts and misunderstandings. Something is wrong in the world. But music can change the world."

Vanesyan grew up in Yarevan, Armenia, located North of Iran, South of Georgia and East of Turkey. Armenia was part of the Soviet Union from the end of World War II to 1991.

In 2002, Vanesyan came to the United States aided by the Edward Muskie Fellowship, and received her masters from Ball State. After returning to Armenia for two years to teach at Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory, where Vanesyan received her bachelors degree, she returned to Ball State to pursue her doctorate in piano performance.

This is Vanesyan's 24th solo performance. Arutunian's pieces have never been performed in Muncie.

Vanesyan said her performance will help Muncie citizens embrace her culture like her fellow students did five years ago.

"We all are the same," she said. "Sometimes we speak the same language, but we don't understand each other. In any case music will unite them all."

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

World famous 83-year-old opera singer Gohar Gasparyan died in Yerevan

17.05.2007
PanARMENIAN.Net

World famous Armenian opera singer, USSR and Armenian national singer, professor of the Yerevan Conservatory 83-year-old Gohar Gasparyan died in Yerevan May 16, the PanARMENIAN.Net was told in the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Culture. Still there is no news about the cause of Gohar Gasparyan’s death. However the singer, who had suffered from a cerebral stroke several years ago, was in the reanimation department of “Nairi” Medical Center during the recent days.

The “Armenian nightingale”- as Gohar Gasparyan was called – was born in 1924 in Cairo. She had studied in the local musical academy. Gasparyan moved to Armenia in 1948. Beginning from 1949 she had sung title parts of 23 opera performances in the Opera and Ballet Academic Theater of Armenia. And generally her repertoire included more than 500 musical compositions.

! Reproduction in full or in part is prohibited without reference to «PanARMENIAN.Net».

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Eurovision 2007: Armenia is 8th again

13.05.2007

PanARMENIAN.Net

Armenia's Hayko took the 8th place in Eurovision-2007. In all Hayko garnered 138 points with his song Any Time You Need.

The highest 12 points Armenia got from Turkey and Georgia.

Hayko got 10 points from France, Belgium, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Russia and Poland. 8 points came from Spain, Cyprus and Bulgaria. Greece gave 6 points; Belarus, Austria, Israel and Ukraine gave 5 points; Moldova gave 2 points.

! Reproduction in full or in part is prohibited without reference to «PanARMENIAN.Net».

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

PARADISE LOST Documentary 'Over The Madness' To Premiere At CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

May 9, 2007
Blabbermouth.net

Diran Noubar's powerful new documentary "Over The Madness" about U.K. band PARADISE LOST provides unique insights on a rock band and the emergence of the "gothic metal" movement. The documentary referred by SYSTEM OF A DOWN's Serj Tankian as "THE film showing the inception and progression of PARADISE LOST" has already been nominated for some key film festivals this year, including Swansea Bay Film Festival (U.K.), Everglades Film Festival (South Africa) and the Wave Gotik Festival (Germany). The film's world premiere is set for the Cannes Film Festival's Market on Monday, May 21 (Palais D, 11:30 a.m.).

This year, PARADISE LOST are celebrating their 20th anniversary and the release of their 11th album. Along with country mates ANATHEMA and MY DYING BRIDE, the band — named after John Milton's epic 1667 poem — is credited for pioneering gothic metal. Throughout years of creative challenging and musical experimentation, PARADISE LOST have persisted in delivering a densely evocative and richly textured brand of metal. Creating a cult-following in many countries around the world, they have released commercially successful musical masterpieces, selling over two million records. Today, their influence still clearly transpires in the sound of most gothic and heavy metal bands.

Comparably to his critically acclaimed social documentary "Armenia, A Country Under Blockade" (2005), Noubar achieves in-depth analysis of the topic he addresses with "Over The Madness". Through first-hand accounts from the band themselves and many other dramatically influential acts, he follows the band from their native Halifax, U.K. to tour stops in Greece and Mexico, where they are regarded as rock "gods." "This is a thorough and detailed account on one of the most important and influential bands of all time," says Metal Hammer's Dimitris Symeliadis.

In a changing music industry where the proliferation of musical content creates interest in new genres that don't have sufficient audience size to warrant a subculture, "Over The Madness" provides a better understanding of a strong but concealed musical movement of the past twenty years (and counting). "Noubar's work finally opens up the closed doors of a music genre gathering hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide, through his captivating documentary covering both the big picture and smaller, personal stories," states Romuald Boulanger, NRJ Group.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Branches of love: Armenia's big ballad

May 9, 2007
esctoday

Emotional staging
In one of the most beautiful sets, Hayko performed Armenia's Anytime You Need at the Hartwall Arena today, the last of the fourteen finalists to take to the stage to rehearse.

Several of the ballad acts this year make wonderful use of the wind machine, and Hayko is no exception; here, the effect is heightened by the white ribbons tied to the leafless branches of the tree behind the singer. Red branches entwine the whole stage on the screens below and behind Hayko as well, forming large heart symbols on either side.

Master of the ballad
Blinding white light beams from the tree out into the hall as the song begins, Hayko standing with his back to the audience and one arm raised. Stars fall, snow-like, at the back of the stage. The artist is a real master of the ballad, giving a secure, professional performance front-stage, remaining on the spot whilst two red-clad backing singers, a drum player and traditional dancer provide the movement behind him.

As expected with a big ballad, the shots are a combination of slow moving close-ups on Hayko and glides around the stage, and slow, zooming pans of the arena with Hayko cocooned in red branches at the front of the hall. Close-ups on Hayko frame the softly blowing tree branches perfectly.

Genius touch
Switching to Armenian at the end of the song was a stroke of genius; the effect is an emotional one, and suddenly Hayko sounds more sincere and heartfelt than ever in the big build.

There was some waiting around as Hayko looked impatient after an initial run, the music taking a while to come on for the second performance. But in the end Hayko managed several full runs of the song, and the Armenians can be very pleased with a moving staging and strong performance of the big ballad which almost finishes the contest.

Press conference
It seems Hayko is not the only star among the Armenian performers but the backing vocalists are also very popular in Armenia, according to the Armenian Head of Delegation.

The idea of his song is that when everything has turned bad and gone, then people shouldn't give up; this is based on an Armenian film. The white ribbons tied to a tree which is used in Hayko's performance is a symbol of hope or a wish for something one really wants to come true. It's an old Armenian tradition to do such a thing.

Choosing a romantic song this year after a very powerful entry last year is a way to show the different sides of the Armenian people, the Head of Delegation said. They hope that in the future they can introduce all sides of the Armenian music market to Europe. Hayko was asked to perform some of his other songs which he did, and the audience thanked him with warm applause. He sang an Italian and a Spanish song to the gathered journalists. He thanked all the fans supporting him everywhere.

Hayko ended the row of all the regular rehearsals' press conferences with a song dedicated to all journalists who were about to fall asleep because of the long working hours!

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Taking note of Mansurian

May 6, 2007
The Boston Globe
Source: Los Angeles Times
By Chris Pasles

Armenian composer gains acclaim for strong and emotional works

LOS ANGELES -- Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian may not be a household name. But in his homeland, in Armenian diaspora communities, and in Europe's new music circles, he is regarded as Armenia's greatest living composer. Recently, he's been getting even wider notice.

The tastemaking German label ECM has issued four CDs of his music ("Monodia" was nominated for a 2005 Grammy), and a fifth is planned. Recently, New York has heard two U S premieres: "Con Anima" for string sextet at Merkin Concert Hall and an Agnus Dei for clarinet, violin, cello , and piano at Carnegie Hall. And last month the Glendale-based Lark Musical Society presented three concerts to commemorate the 92nd anniversary of the Armenian genocide.

Highlights included his epic a cappella choral work, "Ars Poetica," and the US premiere of his Violin Concerto No. 2, titled "Four Serious Songs," and his Viola Concerto, ". . . and then I was in time again . . ."

Mansurian specializes in "very strong, emotional music," said Anja Lechner, cellist of the Munich-based Rosamunde String Quartet, which has recorded three Mansurian works for ECM. "That's maybe why it goes directly to people's hearts."

Mansurian believes that music has a spiritual purpose. "There are two main roots to music," he said recently. "The first one is the religious, Christian aspect, the issue of pain and spirituality, the pain of Christ being crucified and the guilt that comes from it and our relationship to God. The second one is our instinctive search for paradise lost. That's what makes music."

Because he shifted between Armenian and Russian, Mansurian was speaking through several interpreters at the Lark Musical Society offices. A gentle, elegant man with flowing white hair, he spoke in a light, precise tenor, often animating his remarks with eloquently shaped gestures that belied the struggle he said composing has been for him.

"Since childhood to now, my fingertips are bleeding from the conflict," he said. "It was always my personal fight or mission."

Born Jan. 27, 1939, to Armenian parents in Beirut, Lebanon, he moved with his family to Soviet Armenia in 1947 and then in 1956 to the capital, Yerevan, where they settled. He studied at the Yerevan Music Academy and at the Komitas State Conservatory, where, after earning a doctorate, he taught and later became rector.

He won two first prizes in the All-Union competition in Moscow in 1966 and 1968 and the Armenian State Prize in 1981.

Armenia is still his home, but his daughter, Nvart Sarkissian, lives in Glendale, and because his wife, Nora Aharonian, died last year, he plans to spend more time in Southern California.

His early works combined neoclassicism and Armenian folk traditions. Subsequently, he adopted 12-tone and serial techniques. His more recent works are a mix of all these influences.

"I have tried to find myself in the old Armenian music," he said. "I have tried to find myself in Boulez's serialism. When you go deep in these traditions, you will find the things that are true to your individual roots. "

In addition, he said, he always has been drawn to the written word. "As a musician, the Armenian language was one of my first teachers," he said.

"Four Hayrens," for example, is a setting of Armenian poems. "Ars Poetica" consists of poems by Yeghishe Charents, a victim of Stalin's purges. The title of his Viola Concerto, ". . . and then I was in time again . . ." is a line spoken by Quentin Compson, the doomed hero of Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury."

"I have devoted 10 years of my life to Faulkner," he said, before spontaneously reciting the opening of that novel in Russian.

"If I were to choose the person who was most significant to me, it would have been Quentin, because of his incredible honesty."

Mansurian read the book first in Russian, but upon later reading an Armenian translation, he said, he discovered that the Soviet version had been heavily censored.

"Just like the Soviet state got involved in every other aspect of life, it got involved in translations," he said. "That's how things were done."

Living under the Soviet system, he added, was "some sort of different Faulknerian tale. It was another monumental feeling of loss."

For all his identification with his homeland, Mansurian said he preferred to regard himself as a composer rather than an Armenian composer.

"To be truthful to myself, I have to rely on my genetic memory and my way of praying and my whole being, which is of course very Armenian," he said. "But not in order to be called Armenian -- just in order to be true to myself."

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

`My Father My Lord' and `Taxi to the Dark Side' win top awards at Tribeca Film Festival

Friday May 4, 2007
The Star
Source: Associated Press

Armenia's Vardan Hovhannisyan was chosen as the best new documentary filmmaker for "A Story of People in War & Peace.''

NEW YORK: "Taxi to the Dark Side,'' a documentary detailing the Bush administration's policies on prison torture, won best documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The winners were to be announced Thursday evening at an awards dinner in downtown New York.

Directed by Alex Gibney (who made the 2005 documentary "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room''), "Taxi to the Dark Side'' takes the death of an Afghan taxi driver as a leaping off point for a more expansive view of American treatment of prisoners captured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Jewish drama "My Father My Lord,'' directed by David Volach, won the Founders Award for best narrative feature.

The film follows an Orthodox rabbi struggling to keep his faith and family. The Tunisian film "Making Of'' won for both screenplay and best actor.

Written and directed by Nouri Bouzid, the film stars Lofti Edbelli as a break dancer who falls in with a fundamentalist group that intends to make him a terrorist.

Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst's directorial debut won the festival's "Made in NY'' award for his film "The Education of Charlie Banks.''

The documentary "A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory'' won the "NY Loves Film'' award, while the narrative film "The Killing of John Lennon'' won a special jury recognition for the "Made in NY'' category.

Mexico's Enrique Begne was honored as the best new narrative filmmaker for his "Two Embraces.'' And Armenia's Vardan Hovhannisyan was chosen as the best new documentary filmmaker for "A Story of People in War & Peace.''

The sixth annual Tribeca Film Festival, founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, runs through Sunday.

The audience award, dubbed the Cadillac Award, will be announced at the closing night on Saturday, when the HBO produced documentary "The Gates'' will premiere. - AP


Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Hayko meets the Armenian diaspora -- Next stop...Germany

April 13, 2007
esctoday.com

Hayko, the second Armenian representative at the Eurovision Song Contest, started his promotional tour on 11th of April, visiting Almelo, Netherlands first, followed by Brussels, Belgium. The singer had the chance to meet fans of the Armenian community. His next stop will be Germany.
Armenia made its debut in the Eurovision Song Contest last year in Athens with the song Without your love, performed by André. The successful debut, as André reached the final and achieved the 8th place, receiving votes from countries with Armenian communities such us Russia, Turkey, France, Greece, Belgium and The Netherlands.

Hayko, this year's Armenian representative at the Eurovision Song Contest counts on the Armenian diaspora in Europe and started his promotional tour by visiting The Netherlands last Wednesday and right after Belgium, yesterday. The singer had the chance to meet fans of the Armenian community, talk with the them and signing his single and autographs. The Armenian community met at the house of FC Sahakyan in Brussels and they assured Hayko that Armenian people in Brussels will fully support him. Hayko thanked the Belgians for the 12 Points they gave Armenia at last year's Eurovision Song Contest and elaborated on his promotour which doesn't only include Belgium, but also the Netherlands, Germany, Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Greece, Cyprus and Georgia.

Armenia is directly qualified to the final in Helsinki on 12 May 2007, thanks to André's 8th place finish in Athens. In the final, Hayko will perform second last in the 23rd position his entry Anytime you need following and preceding a country that must qualify from the semi-final on 10 May 2007.


Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

JOURNEY TO ARMENIA - Movie Reviews

Now Magazine
Movie Reviews
Armenian quest
By DEIRDRE SWAIN

JOURNEY TO ARMENIA (Robert Guédiguian). 125 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (April 13) at Canada Square. Rating: NNN
Anna ( Ariane Ascaride ) is a brusque French cardiologist whose ailing father ( Marcel Bluwal ) disappears to his homeland of Armenia before he can undergo heart surgery. Anna follows him, visiting the country for the first time.

As quests go, Anna's is vague and unfocused, but it and a subplot involving black-market meds, an exotic dancer and a former general ( Gérard Meylan ) are really just a pretext for gorgeous scenery and history in this travelogue about beleaguered Armenia.

The dialogue is pretty exposition-heavy. The locals are continually explaining things to Anna (although it's refreshing to hear the merits of communism, capitalism and other "isms" discussed in an even-handed way). Anna is imperious and hard to like, so Ascaride, who also co-wrote the film, deserves credit for making us care about what happens to her.

As the story unfolds, Anna and the audience are drawn in by the history of a country, once the nexus of all the great European empires, that's currently recovering from Soviet-style communism and yet retains its character and language.

Maybe that's the reason for Anna's Gallic version of the ugly American tourist: Armenia and its people seem even more beautiful by contrast.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Notes on Time: The Recent Music of Tigran Mansurian

6 April 2007
The Brooklyn Rail
by Alan Lockwood

Mansurian was born in Beirut in 1939; his grandmother had escaped from the Turkish military onslaught to Aleppo, Syria, where she succumbed to malnutrition and his months-old mother was saved by an American missionary. (U.S. activists of that era were stirred by Armenia’s plight, though today’s calls compelling Turkey to acknowledge the twentieth century’s first genocide are thwarted in Congress by NATO alliances.) Mansurian’s family repatriated in what proved to be a Stalinist recruiting ploy. “I went from a French Catholic school in Beirut to a provincial mining town in 1947,” where he found himself the black sheep, he said. Within a decade, the Mansurians were in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, and his professional life in music commenced.

Before ECM began releasing Tigran Mansurian’s music in 2003, the Armenian composer’s finely etched, mid-period chamber music might be found on the U.K.’s Megadisc, with violin and cello concertos dating back to the seventies on the German label Orfeo. Then there was the pared, startling score for Sergei Paradjanov’s 1969 feast of cinematic poetry, The Color of Pomegranates. With last year’s a cappella choral masterwork Ars Poetica, recorded in the sonorous Saghmosavank monastery, a transformation had come full pass, with sterling recent chamber pieces joining new recordings of the violin concerto’s haunting themes and of arch string quartets, all composed in the early eighties. The second of Poetica_’s “Three Autumn Songs,” “Japanese Tankas,” dawns with hushed female voices and then adds bleak ballast with the male voices, welling to a naked momentous peak and a wisp of a protracted unison exit, with that gentle, steely bravura echoed to conclude “And Silence Descends,” the work’s thirteen-minute denouement. _Poetica sets to music the once-banned verse of Yeghishe Charents, the Stalin-era casualty who “brought the rhythmical privileges of Western poetry in to the philosophies of Eastern poetry,” the composer said through a translator from Los Angeles. Preparations were underway there for an ambitious late April festival of his music including Poetica and the concerto “…and then I was in time again,” written for violist Kim Kashkashian and inspired by Quentin Compson from Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.

Hayren, the first of ECM’s four Mansurian offerings, was released under Kashkashian’s name. Titled for the centuries-old Armenian poetic style, it exhibits the renowned violist’s penetrating accuracy of pitch and immensity of feel, teamed with Mansurian and the incisive percussion battery of Robin Schulkowsky on the composer’s transcriptions from songs of Komitas, the choirmaster and musicologist who notated folk traditions that might otherwise have been extinguished in the 1915–17 Armenian genocide, and whose work garnered praise from Debussy. Mansurian’s quavering voice wends a beleaguered labor of love; by the time he reaches the delicately honed “Hoy, Nazan” and “Tsirani Tsar,” the project could sound like the aural equivalent of eyeing indecipherable ancient glyphs—or could resound with a noble, lingering mystique. By bracketing Komitas’s gems with adventuresome duets for Kashkashian and Schulkowsky, Hayren displays Mansurian’s remarkable range: Armenian cultural depths and the synthesis, in his late-sixties, of a lauded Soviet-system artist who has achieved the latitude and collaborative firepower to be generating his most essential music.

In speaking of Hayren_’s Komitas songs, Mansurian suggested that bridge between contemporary musical concerns and traditions from the mountainous, transcontinental land between the Black and Caspian seas: “Those songs are from a thousand years ago, when they had no idea of notation or measures. It’s important that anybody dealing with that music not just work with notes and measures, but rather work to feel the freedom of the sound, which is very fragile, and can collapse. This is most important in our relationship to music: to feel the freedom [that comes] from the sounds.” And _Poetica, composed through the late 1990s to Charents’ impassioned, harrowing poems, provides another window into Mansurian’s sound world: the musical emissions of words. Armenian, an Indo-European language that is one of the world’s oldest, resounds with consonant combinations, and the composer’s favorite poet “revitalized its internal breathing that had been forgotten. He brought all these different tonalities from the same letters back in—to give an example, the letter g has three different tones [each of which Mansurian demonstrated, via long distance]. What attracted me was that Charents went back to medieval Armenian poetry, when no poem was written without a very firm foundation. His poetry rivals those foundations, which made my job easier. He plays with the words, and I just continued playing.”

Mansurian was born in Beirut in 1939; his grandmother had escaped from the Turkish military onslaught to Aleppo, Syria, where she succumbed to malnutrition and his months-old mother was saved by an American missionary. (U.S. activists of that era were stirred by Armenia’s plight, though today’s calls compelling Turkey to acknowledge the twentieth century’s first genocide are thwarted in Congress by NATO alliances.) Mansurian’s family repatriated in what proved to be a Stalinist recruiting ploy. “I went from a French Catholic school in Beirut to a provincial mining town in 1947,” where he found himself the black sheep, he said. Within a decade, the Mansurians were in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, and his professional life in music commenced.

While scoring The Color of Pomegranates (after being awarded first prizes in Moscow’s All-Union competitions in 1966 and ’68), his aptitude for the unconventional came to the fore. Director Paradjanov, also of Armenian heritage, had won international accolades with his stylized Ukrainian flamethrower Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, along with scrutiny at home that would land him a five-year gulag sentence after Pomegranates. “I was thirty years old when I was hired to write music for that film,” Mansurian recalled. “[Paradjanov] was in his mid-forties, and one of the most unique people I’ve ever come across.” Available as a Kino DVD, Pomegranates evokes the life of troubadour Sayat Nova, medieval Armenia’s great voice of love and loss; Paradjanov festooned his tapestry of sumptuous, silent tableaux with Mansurian’s flurrying srings (double-reed flutes), battering drums, and chaotic kamanchas (spiked fiddles), layered into one of cinema’s sonic triumphs. “When I was scoring that movie, it had to be pure feeling; any sort of logic or meaning had to be out of it. It was some sort of energetic thing: one energy going to another energy. The music is not about the tree or the branch, it’s about the sap.”

Composed in 1985, with glasnost underway, Mansurian’s Five Bagatelles (on the Megadisc compilation) delve into tone clusters and atonal lines, and ECM’s quartet recording can suggest Shostakovich’s replete detail, though where the Russian wielded mordant wit, Mansurian’s grace rings both limpid and ominous, recalling the air of experimental mid-century piano pieces by Alan Hovhaness. Then ten years ago, “when Kim asked me to write a piece for viola, I jumped on the opportunity like a lion,” having long imagined setting The Sound and the Fury. “Faulkner’s relationship with time was where I always got my strength. A lot of my colleagues would just do the same things—their times were the Soviet times. The phrase ‘…and I was in time again…’ (from Quentin Compson’s opening line, as is The Shadow of the Sash, the title of a mid-1990s chamber work) sounds to me like a rebellious thought against time. When I say ‘time,’ I’m talking of a philosophical category, a relative category.” Citing fifth-century philosopher David Anhaght, Mansurian said “the symbol of time among the numbers is seven, which is also the symbol of virginity, and the concerto is written along the number seven, about virgin time, which is Quentin’s issue. When I wrote it, I chose viola because it is the most mystical instrument there is.”

Annual remembrance of the Armenian genocide occurs on April 24, and three Mansurian concerts highlight the L.A. commemoration. After the evening-length Ars Poetica, a night of chamber music includes Agnus Dei _for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, premiered last year in Germany, and the third string quartet. On April 25, Kim Kashkashian plays _“…and then I was in time again” during an orchestral evening. In a phone interview, American-born Kashkashian recalled her introduction to Mansurian. “We were in his apartment, and he sang songs for me,” she said. “Armenia is a small country and with anyone whose name ends in ‘ian,’ as I am on their radar, they are on my radar. But there were also affinities of aesthetic and ethics when Tigran and I met, and we were both very interested in the Komitas transcriptions. We had many starting points, and that work continues.”

Last year, violist Ara Gregorian and the ensemble Concertante approached Mansurian to commission what Gregorian termed “a cross between a solo piece for each instrumentalist, and a piece for the sextet.” Gregorian began studying ECM’s releases and found Confessing with Faith, written for Kashkashian and the Hilliard Ensemble, “an unbelievable piece, in the way he used the viola as a singing and expressive voice, played against the vocal quartet.” The new work, Con Anima, was played at Merkin in late March. The second violin concerto, Four Serious Songs, premiered in Sweden in January and is to be played during the L.A. events. It is the likely centerpiece of ECM’s next release, as the label samples Mansurian’s vivid oeuvre, and documents his current work.

The U.S. premiere of Agnus Dei is April 6 at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, and on May 10 the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presents the New York premiere of Duo for Viola and Percussion.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Virtuoso violinist has a riveting CD

Sun, Mar. 04, 2007
Beacon Journal
By -- Elaine Guregian, Beacon Journal arts, culture writer

SHOSTAKOVICH VIOLIN CONCERTOS 1 AND 2
Sergey Khachatryan, violin, Orchestre National de France, Kurt Masur, conductor
Naive Classique V5025

The young violinist Sergey Khachatryan made a powerful impression on me when he debuted at the Blossom Festival in 2005. From the sound of his riveting new recording of the Shostakovich Violin Concertos No. 1 and 2, he is zooming toward an important career.

Khachatryan made this disc with Kurt Masur, the maestro who will conduct the Cleveland Orchestra when Khachatryan solos in the Max Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Severance Hall in Cleveland.

Khachatryan, born in Armenia's capital of Yerevan in 1985, seems to have it all: technique that won't quit, a gorgeous sound and keen musical judgment. In 2005, he won first prize in the prestigious Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Belgium. This winter, he is touring the United States, performing with the San Diego Symphony, New York Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Orchestra.

There's more talent in the family; the violinist's sister, pianist Lusine Khachatryan, will perform with him in his Carnegie Hall recital debut on April 30.

The Shostakovich concertos pair a brooding despair with nervous energy, qualities that come easily to this gifted player. Khachatryan can make his tone weep, then wiggle free into one of those delirious outbursts so characteristic of Shostakovich. The Orchestre National de France sounds fabulous, too. Its virtuosically skittering winds are the perfect complement to Khachatryan's daredevil playing of the crazily see-sawing lines.

For tickets to his Cleveland performances, call 216-231-1111 or 800-686-1141.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

Armenia - Hayko [exclusive]

01-03-2007
oikotimes.com
By Luke Fisher reporting from Kent (United Kingdom)

Hayko is one of the best known male artists in Armenia, and now has the honour of representing his country for only their second ever participation at the Eurovision Song Contest. Here's what he had to say to oikotimes.com:

Hayko- first of all, congratulations on winning the Armenian national final. How does it feel to know that you are the official Armenia representative for Eurovision this year?
Thank you. Well it is a great responsibility, which I realise stronger day after day.

When did you think about entering the national final for Eurovision?
I have written 7 songs for the National Selection, but this one was chosen by jury and also the team I work with throughout the years. My friends forecast that ''Anytime You Need'' is going to be the best one during the selection.

What was the process you had to go through?
Actually the melody has been in my mind for a long time as I worked at the soundtrack to the film "Don't Be Afraid" produced by Public TV of Armenia. The main theme of the soundtrack slightly turned into a new melody and I couldn't help writing it on the paper.

About your career, when did you get into singing?
Everything started from the music school, them musical college, than State Conservatoire after Komitas. My public performances commenced in the State Music Theatre in 1996.

You've won many awards in Armenia, (apart from Eurovision) which is the one that means the most to you?
I appreciate the decision to award me every time I win something. I appreciate every kind word of my fans because they support me and the best award ever won is public love.

You also co-wrote your song ''Anytime you need''. What inspired you to write it, and was it written with Eurovision in mind?
I am thankfull to Karen Kavaleryan, who was very kind to write touching and at the same time very comprehensible lyrics to my song. I kept in my mind the only thing - ESC is unpredictable and I need to present something which is full of my own emotions.

Was entering Eurovision something you'd always wanted to do?
I am happy for my country to be represented during the contest, and I feel the greatest responcibility for the people who believe in me. Actually the chance is given and nobody should lose it.

Are you a fan of the contest? If yes, what is your favourite ever entry?
I've been watching the ESC even before we could officially be represented there and I must admit it's something to enjoy first of all. I can't recall my favourite entry right now, it's difficult.

Last year, Andre not only qualified to the final, but finished high enough to mean that you are already in the final- do you worry that you have high standards to fulfil this year?
This is what I mean when I'm saying about the responsibility that I have!

Will you make any changes to your song before Helsinki?
Probably I will make some technical rearrangements before making the CD-single.

What are you looking forward to most about Eurovision & Helsinki?Feel the rhythm of Eurovision ;) This time in Helsinki!

As you prepare to go on stage, what do you think will be running through your mind?You are too curious! You'll see it during the rehearsals.

What do you think your song will offer to the Eurovision audience?Love and love again.

And finally, is there anything you'd like to say to the Eurovision fans reading this?I wish all the best to the readers and fans of ESC. Hopefully you will like the show I am going to present in Helsinki. My love to you ''Anytime You Need''!

The best of luck to Hayko at Eurovision 2007, and special thanks to Diana Mnatsakanyan of AMPTV.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.