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Traditional music

Armenia has cultivated a rich and unique musical folklore repertoire since ancient times. Among its most remarkable elements are the music accompanying wedding dances, choror or trenguy with lighter sounds. Let us also mention the horhovel, these melodies played by peasants during the ploughing period. The Armenian liturgy includes a vast repertoire of sharagan

, these hymns or canticles sung in churches. These ancient religious songs are said to have originated in pre-Christian monodies.

The cornerstone of Armenian music is Sayat Nova (1712-1795). This poet and trouvère, born in Sanahin, sang his poems accompanied by several instruments, including the kamantcha (a stringed instrument, a kind of oriental violin, also called pampir

). A true meeting point between Caucasian and Eastern cultures, his songs are considered to be hymns to friendship between the peoples of the region and glorified as such in Soviet times. Today, in spite of all the disagreements between the different nations of the area, they still weave this bond that transcends ancestral hatreds. Sayat-Nova is still sung by the Armenians, seduced by the serious and melancholic accents, imbued with a deep nostalgia, of his melodies, which only certain distinguished artists venture to interpret.

Of course, it is impossible to talk about Armenian music without mentioning the duduk, the Armenian national instrument, as emblematic of the country as the pomegranate. This small flute made of apricot twigs pierced with nine holes, which originally provided the musical accompaniment for lonely shepherds, is often played to interpret deep, poignantly melancholy melodies that can bring tears to the eyes of the most hardened Armenians. Rarely played solo, the duduk is an opportunity to hear this purely Armenian specificity that is the ancestral technique of the dam, which consists in maintaining the tonic note throughout the pieces. If the great master of duduk

is undoubtedly Djivan Gasparian, some great names have also participated in its popularization in the world, such as Levon Madoyan, Vatche Hovsepian, Gevorg Dabaghyan or the Marseilles-based Levon Minassian.

Over the ages, traditional Armenian music has found new forms in the hands of artists such as Ara Gevorgyan, who played it on a synthesizer in the 1980s, John Berberian, a great oud player who fused it with jazz and rock in the 1960s, or Arto Tunçboyacıyan, founder of the Armenian Navy Band who experiments with traditional Armenian sounds.

In spite of its name tribute to a great composer of learned music of the last century, the Arno Babadjanian concert hall, at the corner of Republic Square in Yerevan, presents a lot of traditional or folk music and dances. Otherwise, a good opportunity to hear some is the Areni Wine Festival which celebrates the blood of the Earth with many concerts.

Popular music

What genre is more popular today in Armenia than Rabiz ? A kind of turbofolk with an Armenian sauce mixing oriental melodies and electronic productions, rabiz is as much adored as it is hated. Anti-rabiz even took to the streets of Yerevan in August 1998, calling on the authorities to defend the true values of Armenian music and to be vigilant in the face of this orientalizing tidal wave that is sweeping across the airwaves, radio stations and television. But rabiz still has many fans, unconditional fans of a resolutely oriental music they don't think they have anything to be ashamed of and on which they dance in restaurant halls or during their trips to the countryside. Still, with its syrupy melodies, amplified by electric guitar and the Arab tremolos of its stars, such as the singer Tata Simonyan adored by the Armenians or Tatoul Avoyan the father of the genre, rabiz

does not really soften the mores and continues to exercise a certain monopoly on the airwaves, eclipsing Armenian musical creations in other fields (jazz, rock, electro, etc.). In fact, the genre is so important today that it goes beyond the framework of music and describes a way of dressing and even a way of life.

Today the rabiz

heritage is in good hands, shared by new stars such as Hayko Ghevondyan who modernizes it, Super Sako who mixes the genre with rap or Sirusho who takes it into mainstream pop. In another genre, let's not forget to mention artists such as Harout Pamboudjian, rabiz, but not too much, or Charles Aznavour who are among those Armenian stars abroad, equally adored at home.

Classical music

Armenian classical music owes much to the Reverend Father Komitas (1869-1935). As a composer, he set to music hundreds of popular songs collected in the Armenian provinces and popularized the country's culture abroad, notably in Berlin during his philosophical and musical studies. In 1915, Komitas was deported like all Armenian intellectuals and artists. Marked by the horrors he experienced, his reason wavered and he was hospitalized in 1916, then transferred to France where he died in 1935 in the insane department of Villejuif. In 1936, his ashes were repatriated to Yerevan, where he joined the National Pantheon. Since then, Komitas is rightly considered the founding father of modern Armenian music. By collecting the national musical heritage, this composer, who was perfectly familiar with Western music, tried to achieve a kind of synthesis between the principles of traditional Armenian music, resolutely monodic, and those of European polyphony and harmony. He will open the way to great Armenian composers and musicians, the most famous of whom are Aram Khatchatourian, Arno Babadjanian and Tigrane Mansourian.

The first is perhaps the most famous Armenian composer. Immortalized by his Sword Dance composed for the Gayane

ballet, Khachaturian established himself as one of the "official" composers of the Soviet Union alongside Shostakovich and Prokofiev and even served as a deputy in the Supreme Soviet. A huge figure who hides another, Arno Babadjanian, the other Armenian composer of the Soviet period, whose piano virtuosity was not unlike that of Rachmaninov. Following in the footsteps of Aram Khachaturian and Arno Babadjanian, the composer Tigran Mansurian is undoubtedly the major figure in contemporary Armenian music. Born in 1939, he drew on Armenian musical traditions, both popular and religious, to compose music with resolutely contemporary tonalities. A Tigrane who paved the way for another, since one of the last great names in Armenian scholarly music, the world-famous contemporary jazz and classical pianist Tigrane Hamassian, is a spiritual son of Mansourian.

Other well-known names in Armenian classical music include Iosif Andriasov (1933-2000), the eminence grise of the discipline, Alexander Arutiunian (1920-2012) famous for his Trumpet Concerto in A-flat major

, or more recently Vache Sharafyan, with its contemporary style and resounding worldwide success.

On the voice side, many Armenians have gained international recognition: soprano Gohar Gasparyan (1924-2007) was considered the "Armenian Nightingale", Lusine Zakaryan (1937-1992) remains associated with spiritual medieval music, and Sona Ghazarian (soprano) has sung in some of Europe's greatest operas, Cathy Berberian (1925-1983) remained famous for "Stripsody", an onomatopoeia song taken from comic books, and Gegham Grigoryan (1951-2016), a great tenor who was one of the singers in the Mariinsky.

As in most countries of the former Soviet Union, Armenia has no shortage of stages for classical music. Finally, especially in Yerevan, where there are a number of quality venues such as the Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall, a renowned venue in the heart of the capital, directed by Eduard Topchian, the Komitas Chamber Music Hall, a prestigious stage where evenings of organ music (an instrument for which Komitas composed a great deal) and classical music recitals are given, and the State Chamber Music Hall dedicated to the style for which it is named. The Spendiarian Opera House also presents a classical repertoire including some of the pillars of Armenian lyric art.

Current music

At a time when so-called folk music is becoming increasingly globalised, we can feel the trembling of a young Armenian scene ready to marry traditional melodies with modern rhythms. The Armenian percussionist and singer from Turkey, Arto Tunçboyaciyan, at the head of the eleven musicians of the Armenian Navy Band, is one of the initiators of this half-folk, half-jazzy current, which integrates Armenian rhythms into world music, alongside more classical musicians, such as the singer Tatévik (Hovannissian). Let us also mention Time Report, a group founded in 1997 and made up of six musicians - including Armen Hyusnunts on saxophone and Vardan Grigorian on duduk - which has become an institution and a reference for the contemporary jazz scene in Armenia.

Prohibited during the Soviet era, the rock culture seduced a - small - part of the Armenian protest youth by its subversive character and a modest scene was formed in Yerevan during the 1970/80s around a few figures such as Arthur Meschian or groups such as Bambir and its progressive folk-rock (whose members' children today perpetuate the music as "Bambir 2"). That said, the genre was to experience a real boom in the early 2000s, when Los Angeles Armenians, System of a Down, imposed themselves on the international rock scene, propelling the country directly into the era of Heavy Metal .

Armenia opened up even more to electronic music and rock on 21 June, when the country's music festival took place. On 26, 27 and 28 August 2011, Yerevan hosted its first international rock festival, the Yerevan Summer Music Festival. Since then, the genre has made its mark on the country's stages and can often be heard resonating in places like the Stop Club, one of the few clubs in Yerevan where a different band performs almost every night. Feel like folk music? Head to the stage of the Calumet Ethnic Lounge, a bar located in the heart of Yerevan's trendy district and headquarters for expatriates.

The dance

With such a rich folklore, it is no surprise that Armenia has as many dances as regions. A repertoire of an astonishing variety, and a national heritage piously inventoried and reconstructed by the great folk ensembles of Soviet Armenia, which had acquired an international reputation. Whether lively or languorous depending on the musical and/or sung accompaniment, Armenian dances are always colourful and rich in physical prowess. On the stage, there is an extreme femininity in the female dancers, whose hands are put to great use, drawing refined and codified gestures in the air, while the male dances are martial, each dancer taking turns performing a number in front of his companions who take up the challenge in a bid for prowess. An impressive show, immortalized by Aram Khatchatourian's Sword Dance. Outside of the folklore or opera scene, Armenians do not lose an opportunity to dance. After a good meal, when the spirits are warmed by vodka or cognac, the tables are pushed and the improvised dance floor is set up in a frenzied kotchari (local version of sirtaki), a round where men and women move around holding each other by the shoulder, frantically tapping the ground with their feet. The kotchari is the epitome of Armenian dance, and was also inscribed on UNESCO's list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2017 (after the music of the duduk in 2008).