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PRESS RELEASE
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
AGBU Quartet Thrills 1,500 in Aleppo, Damascus and Beirut
A quartet of talented Armenian musicians completed their debut Middle
East tour with much fanfare this winter and with sponsorship from the
AGBU New York Special Events Committee (NYSEC). At all three concerts,
the packed house included officials from the Syrian and Lebanese
governments. The tour follows two successful AGBU concerts produced in
the past two years with the support of NYSEC at Carnegie Hall in New
York, where the four musicians played among others.
The artists, Hayk Arsenyan, on piano, Aleksandr Nazaryan, on viola, and
Hrant Parsamian, on cello, have all benefitted from AGBU’s scholarship
assistance towards their studies in music at distinguished international
conservatories and universities. Violinist Nazig Tchakarian is still on
scholarship as she pursues her doctorate in musical arts at Stony Brook
University in New York state.
This quartet gave the first of its sold-out concerts in the Nazarian
Theater of the AGBU Center in Aleppo on January 24, 2010, and the second
at Dar El Assad Theater for Culture and the Arts in Damascus on January
28, under the auspices of the Syrian Ministry of Culture, organized by
AGBU Damascus in cooperation with "Sada" [ECHO] Musical Culture
Association. The program in Damascus featured piano quartets by Mozart
and Brahms, as well as a trio playing "Four Seasons" by the Argentine
composer Astor Byasula in a style combining elements of traditional
tango, classical music and jazz.
The final concert took place on January 31 through the initiative of the
AGBU Lebanon Cultural Committee at the AGBU Demirdjian Center in the
Beirut suburb of Antelias, with over 400 in attendance, including
members of the Lebanese Parliament, ministers, ambassadors, well-known
Lebanese musicians and academics, representatives of sister
organizations, and AGBU leaders and members. After the quartet played
pieces by Mozart, Piazzolla and Brahms, they responded to waves of
applause and requests for an encore by playing Khachaturian’s "Sword
Dance."
For decades, AGBU scholarships have been awarded to talented students of
Armenian descent studying in the performing arts. With generous monetary
contributions from donors, AGBU can carry out its mission of laying the
foundation for the future of these artists. Recently, scholarships were
awarded to New York-based students who had applied to the AGBU Education
Department’s Performing Arts Fellowship Program.
Established in 1906, AGBU () is the world’s largest
non-profit Armenian organization. Headquartered in New York City, AGBU
preserves and promotes the Armenian identity and heritage through
educational, cultural, and humanitarian programs, annually touching the
lives of some 400,000 Armenians around the world.
For more information about AGBU and its worldwide programs, please visit