In ‘With You, Armenia,’ Kissin and Others Honor the Slaughtered

Anthony Tommasini

 

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.

How Komitas Preserved Armenian Folk Music

Cara Rosehope

In the 1990s, the duduk found its way into movie soundtracks, radio playlists and record collections of the west. Yet as Cara Rosehope writes, the music of Armenia’s national instrument might never have survived the Armenian genocide were it not for Komitas Vartabed—a priest, musician, composer and so much more.

Armenian Genocide: Erdogan Must Say the Truth

Edward Nalbandian

 Translated by Vartan Matiossian

 

This is the verbatim translation of the French article that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic Armenia recently published in the Parisian daily "Le Figaro". Several outlets of Armenia (Armenian Public Radio, News.am, Tert.am) posted an English version on September 6, called "full version" in Tert. am, as well as in "Asbarez," which reprinted it on September 8. According to Tert.am, there were "slight abridgements" in the version published by "Le Figaro," which were far from being "slight": FOUR entire paragraphs and HALF of FOUR others were left out, without counting some significant textual differences.

Sybarite5: A Night to Remember

Vartan Matiossian

 

It was a cold night in Manhattan, but the audience filling Zankel Hall was warmed enough to cheerfully welcome Sybarite5 in their Carnegie Hall debut. And for the next two hours, people went from warm to hot while this chamber quintet of young, talented, and passionate musicians was unfolding a cascade of unchained melodies. We have watched and listened to a good share of chamber groups over the years, but nothing was close to the originality and versatility of this one. This writer is neither a musician nor a musical critic, thus these lines are not intended to be a specialist's appreciation of what really transpired on the night of November 13, 2012.