Lusine

The three sonatas for violin and piano of Brahms are each in three movements, but they have more in commom with the composer's knotty late chamber music than with the amateur-oriented world of the majority of violin sonatas in the 19th century. Each elaborates a basic mood or structure, the first intensely songful, the second compact and full of symbolic allusion, and the third capricious and often ethereal. They need room and a certain broad, relaxed quality to bring out all the detail without losing the essential lyrical nature of the genre and all the songs that are quoted or evoked across the set. The requisite breadth is there in this release by the highly photogrenic Armenian-born duo of Sergey and Lusine Khachatryan.

Dedicated to the 100th Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, My Armenia offers a very personal, touching and brilliant tribute to Armenian music by Sergey and Lusine Khachatryan. Sergey and Lusine are regular duo partners. Together, they have given recitals at London's Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Paris Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Madrid Auditori Nacional, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Brussels Bozar, Luxemburg Philharmonie and New York Carnegie Hall.

Lusine Zakaryan (Armenian: Լուսինե Զաքարյան), born Svetlana Zakaryan, (June 1, 1937 in Akhaltsikhe, Georgian SSR – December 30, 1992, in Yerevan, Armenia), was an Armenian soprano. She grew up in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region of southern Georgia. In 1952, she moved with her family to Yerevan, where she attended a secondary music school. She entered the Yerevan State Musical Conservatory in 1957 and her singing talent soon became clear.
From 1970 to 1983, Zakaryan was a soloist with the symphony orchestra of Armenian TV and Radio. She also sang in the choir of the Armenian Apostolic Church's Holy See at the Echmiadzin Cathedral, and it is for her magnificent rendition of centuries-old Armenian spiritual hymns that she is now most remembered.
Zakaryan was also known for singing the international opera repertoire as well as Armenian traditional and church music.

Complete in itself, this solo piano album by Lusine Grigoryan, can also be considered a companion volume to the Gurdjieff Ensemble’s critically-acclaimed album of Komitas’s music. It was recorded at the same 2015 session in Lugano, directed by Manfred Eicher, and has some overlapping of repertoire. Where Levon Eskenian’s versions with the Gurdjieff Ensemble explored some of the composer’s sonic inspirations with folk instruments, Lusine Grigoryan conveys some of the same colours with her wide palette of piano articulation and her exploration of timbral possibilities: in her playing one can catch the flavour of the duduk, the tar, the zurna et cetera, as Komitas intended. As Levon Eskenian has noted, Grigoryan “conveys the mysterious presence typical of rustic and ritual music.” Pieces heard on this recording, the ECM debut of Lusine Grigoryan, include Komitas’s Seven Songs, Seven Dances, Pieces for Children, and Msho Shoror.

Говорят, Бог - это солнце, а любовь - лучи его. Можно ли представить солнце без лучей? Можно ли представить духовную музыку без Лусине Закарян? Невозможно. И чем больше слушаешь её ангельский голос, тем больший нисходит на тебя покой, тем большей гордостью за свою национальную духовную музыку наполняется сердце. Ибо преподносится она как должно. Потому что певица не только чувствует эту музыку, она верит в неё и передает эту веру слушателю. Она пела, отрекшись от всего земного, её чувства передавались нам, заставляя переживать те чувства, которые человек может испытывать разве что на небесах. «Моё представление о стране чудес - Армении - было бы неполным, если бы я не услышал пение этого настоящего чуда - Лусине Закарян», – так сказал о талантливой певице, чьё великолепное сопрано завладело сердцами многочисленных слушателей по всему миру, знаменитый американский художник Рокуэлл Кент. Кстати, слово «луйс» в армянском языке означает «свет», поэтому Лусине по-армянски – то же, что по-русски Светлана. Ее смерть в 1992 г. оставила тысячи ее поклонников безутешными. Закарян родилась в 1937 г.в Ахалцха (Грузия)…

Language Barrier is Jeff Mcilwain's first album for Hymen Records since his Iron City full length, released in 2002. Here, Mcilwain explores his ambient side to a fuller extent than in any of his previous releases. beautiful chord structures melt with excerpts from his huge archive of field recordings. Characteristic layers and treatments are mostly kept together by a metric structure accented with subtle rhythms. 'Jetstream', for example, gets this structure from a sample-and-hold-like-treatment - restrained, but still very sonically detailed. Language Barrier is ambient electronic music at it's best, providing a relaxed, entrancing sentiment - music to be listened to, carefully and often.

As a professional singer, Hasmik Baghdasaryan, the soloist of the vocal ensemble Luys, appreciates the way the members of the Armenian quintet work together. The musicians’ cooperation within the ensemble is very harmonious and cheerful but at the same time on a high professional level. When on tour, Luys presents two very exclusive pieces of music “Banin Hor“ and “Ibr Zard“: The first piece was specially written for Hasmik Baghdasaryan, while the other one has been composed by her good friend, the well-known Armenian composer and artist Vahan Artsruni. He gave Luys the exclusive right to sing this song, which is a great honor to the artists. Besides her work with Luys, Hasmik Baghdasaryan has recorded many albums with modern composers, as for example with the Greek composer Alkis Baltas; with Vahan Artsruni she has recorded music comprising the music era of more than 500 years; and she has transferred the music of Mesrop Mashtots into the modern music age….

“Hover” choral ensemble was established within “Hover” State Chamber Choir. It is gathered from the leading singers of the choir, who are also orchestra musicians. It started to appear in Europe as “Armenian Voices” since January 2012.
Gevorg Avetisyan is one of the leading flutists of Armenian Philharmonic, State Youth orchestras and Opera Theatre orchestra. Kim Sargsyan is a violinist of Armenian National Opera and Ballet Theatre.,.