Grandeur, Teacher, Performer, and Master… The page for the Fatherland opened in  his life with the blessing of Vazgen I. His singing voice was crystallized in the class of Tamar Shahnazaryan. This adamantine basso was presented outside Armenia by Hovhannes Chekijyan. He completed the gallery of great figures of the Armenian opera stage of the late 20th century and built a strong vocal-pedagogical school of the early 21th century.

The broadcast is dedicated to the memory of Valeri Harutyunyan.

Today Vahram Sargsyan represents both Armenian and Canadian art of music composing. Prestigious competitions and festivals of choral music are interested in his activities of vocal performance and creation. From singing in a church choir to studying in the classes of Ashot Zohrabyan and Tigran Hekekyan at Yerevan Conservatory – this was the first phase of his professional life...

The performing path of pianist Areg Sargsyan, associate professor of Yerevan State Conservatory named after Komitas, began since school years. In his performance, both heredity and belonging to the school are entwined, a school that originates from great figures who communicated with the world in poetic language.

Commissioned by Munich Chamber Orchestra and Berlin RIAS Choir, through the efforts of conductor Alexander Liebreich, Tigran Mansuryan's Requiem was born in 2011 and is performed on various stages of the world.  In March 2017, ECM Records released its CD. We're sure that a completely new breath will generate in the dialog of world and Armenian music. "I have given them a chance to sing us," says Maestro.

"Lusine sings, and a century-long history, a whole life, becomes animate. When Lusine sings, it seems to me Komitas stands at her back invisibly, resting his supporting hand on the singer's shoulder. Her singing is the wonderful discovery of our art of singing," wrote Vahagn Davtyan.

Yerevan Art School named after Ghazaros Saryan lives thanks to talented students, devoted teachers, and caring parents. The school organizes exemplary cultural events for our country. On March 28, it hosted a concert dedicated both to the 85th anniversary of the Composers' Union of Armenia and to musicologist Araksi Saryan's 80th birth anniversary. Our guest is the school head Susanna Sukiasyan.

"No single day without music, no single day without the eternal beauty… Teaching to search and understand that beauty − in this she found the meaning of surviving in this hard world." This broadcast dedicated to Ketty Malkhasyan, a prominent representative of the Armenian piano school, is based on Irina Zolotova's monography "Ketty Malkhasyan."

The concert of the Nshkhark ensemble of the Araratian Patriarchal Diocese's youth unions will take place on March 24, 2017. The program includes the choral songs by modern Armenian composers Yervand Yerkanyan, Davit Halajyan, and Svetlana Aleksanyan. Our guest is the ensemble’s artistic director Heghine Ohanyan.

This is how musicologist Evgenia Gilina called Anushavan Ter-Ghevondyan. The famous musician successfully combined the activities of a composer, musician, public figure, pedagogue, musicologist-critic, and conductor. For four years he headed Yerevan State Conservatory, and during that time the Opera Studio started to function; he also participated in establishing the musical publishing office... This year marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of Anushavan Ter-Ghevondyan.

At the final concert of the 8th Festival of Armenian Composers' Art, the State Youth Orchestra of Armenia had prepared a premiere, performing the Piano Concert of Eduard Hayrapetyan. We are talking about that work with its first performer and soloist Nareh Arghamanyan.

Hayk Davtyan is an opera and symphony conductor, who values the importance of the best demonstration of his country, Armenian music, in the repertoire of Nairi ensemble that he has created with an Armenian name and French musicians. He is a violinist who has been awarded a Grand Prix. He is a teacher in whose class wonderful violinists are born. Tatyana Hayrapetyan, Edvard Tatevosyan, Leonid Kogan, Igor Bezrodny, these are our guest’s main teachers of violin. And Yuri Davtyan is our guest’s main teacher of conducting.

During the Soviet years, three attempts were made to publish a musical journal in Armenia. But such a journal was born only in the years of Independence. Who is the guardian angel of the journal? Who is the first shareholder? What gift was received by the famous music critic? Our guest is the founder and editor-in-chief of the journal “Musical Armenia” Gohar Shagoyan.

A video clip lasting for only several seconds and presenting the singing of six members of the Little Singers of Armenia was enough to bring Hiroshi Nagano to our country. “Armenia is a place of paradise which must be visited… Here it is possible to understand why a human lives,” confesses the producer of JVC Kenwood Victor Entertainment Corporation. In the modern history of Armenia, this is the first time that a large collaboration of CD production has started.
Hiroshi Nagano, Tigran Hekekyan, Lilit Khansulyan

Composer Martin Ulikhanyan is passing his path of a decent and active musician in a way that he is able to build a new road necessary for Armenian music art. He has accumulated a serious stock of composing, performance, and pedagogy, and this is expressed in his multi-faceted activity.

Aida, Violetta, Leonora, Norma, Tosca — it is impossible to imagine an opera repertoire without these dramatic characters. Marine Deinyan — it is difficult to imagine the modern Armenian opera stage without this soprano. An important part of the path of this singer, who graduated from the class of Lilya Karamyan and Svetlana Kolosaryan and performed on the stage for the first time under Ohan Durian’s conducting, is formed of competitions, international concert tours, and pedagogical activity.

Rafayel Mangasaryan was the conductor of one of the best bands of the Soviet Union, the Symphony Orchestra of the Television and Radio of the Armenian SSR. The main aim of his activity as a conductor was to help create a rich fund of Armenian music in the funds of the radios of the Soviet Union and Armenia... In this broadcast dedicated to Mangasaryan’s 90th anniversary, we present some episodes from the life of this famous musician as well as his conducting precepts.

They were aerial people in the direct and figurative senses of the word. Eduard Karapetyan was the founder of sound engineering in Armenia and one of the four best specialists in this field in the Soviet Union. The voice and work of his life partner, radio director and host Kima Davtyan are also part of the history of Armenian radio. This broadcast is another dedication to their union.

In 1940, during the ten-day events of Armenian culture organized in Moscow, Aram Khachaturian's ballet Happiness was a great success. The author was in such high spirits that he only needed to write down the music sounds erupted from his soul. His joy increased from anticipation for the birth of his child. "How happy you are; you wrote your concert, and your son was born," remembered Aram Khachaturian the congratulation of one of the musicians.

Rossini's opera Cinderella was performed in Armenia for the first time. That day, this faity tale was presented at the Spendiaryan National Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet by the theater's young singers, choir, orchestra, and conductor Zaven Vardanyan. "Today, adults also need fairy tales. Fairy tales give us hope," says our guest, Zaven Vardanyan. During the talk, some parts of Opera Cinderella are presented performed by the singers of Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

The Art Cinema ensemble was founded in 2010. It is the world's only ensemble whose repertoire consists exclusively of cinema music. Its musicians not just play the program but create a new high-quality tradition in the contemporary performing arts through their own transcriptions, arrangements, and interpretations.

The members of the ensemble are Ashot Khoyetsyan, 1st violin, Hayk Vardanyan, 2nd violin, Levon Arakelyan, cello, Karen Sarafyan, piano.

• Today we host Art Cinema's violinists.

Singer, educator Shake Makaryan has lived an interesting life. She was born in Iran, carried out activities there, and studied in Italy. In recent years, a big part of her life is connected with Armenia. She conveys to us some episodes from the cultural life of Iranian Armenians. The occasion for this broadcast is Araks Makaryan's (our guest's mother) book "Memories Turned into Ashes," which helps to reflect even on already forgotten events and feelings. "Our greatest desire was to come to the Fatherland in order to see with our own eyes what our older generation always told," confesses our guest. 

Petros Shuzhunyan lives far from Armenia. But his creative imagination is constantly feeding on the culture of his Fatherland, especially on Armenian spiritual music. "The wonderful feeling of knowing the spiritual reality started in me from an early age when I sang in a church choir," confesses the Canada-based composer. Thanks to him, Montreal became one of the places on the world map that hosted events dedicated to the centenary of the Armenian Genocide.

The first project of the Cultural Renaissance Foundation under the motto "Preserving the National Identity" is a necessary example of speaking out about uniting scholarly and creative forces. "It was necessary to create an Internet encyclopedia where anyone can see, listen to and read what is hidden in our repositories," says our guest, music editor of the project "Armenian National Music Treasury," musicologist Lilit Harutyunyan.

She is the founder and executive director of three festivals and has been investing all her strength and knowledge into helping the culture of her homeland. London-based Hasmik Movsisian never feels herself far from Armenia and after the birth of the «Music of Armenia» organization she has constantly been in Armenia.