Author: Chatinian Lara

At Mostly Mozart, a Tousle-Haired Newcomer Joins a Returning Hero
By STEVE SMITH

New York Times
August 7, 2006

The notion of viewing Mozart from the vantage point of what followed him –
both in close proximity and at a farther remove – is a central principle of
this year’s Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. The program presented
by the guest conductor Osmo Vanska and the festival orchestra at Avery
Fisher Hall on Friday evening neatly illustrated the concept, with a major
work by Mozart preceded by a modern homage and followed by a masterpiece by
Beethoven, whose revolutionary gestures were built on Mozart’s foundation.

Mr. Vanska, whose debut in the festival last year was a star-making event,
was greeted as a returning hero. An exacting musician, he quickly revealed a
care for textural balance and a predilection for extremes of dynamics in the
Swiss composer Frank Martin’s `Overture in Homage to Mozart,’ a tart but
genial Neo-Classical curtain-raiser commissioned in 1956 to celebrate the
200th anniversary of Mozart’s birth.

Taking advantage of the improved acoustics of the reconfigured Avery Fisher
Hall, Mr. Vanska established a subdued base-line dynamic. Hushed pianissimos
compelled listeners to lean in close, and accented notes and louder passages
leapt out in striking contrast.

Wielding his baton with an urgent sweep, Mr. Vanska propelled Mozart’s
Symphony No. 35, the `Haffner,’ at a tempo that initially seemed too driven
to sustain. Fine details of articulation were occasionally lost in the
headlong surge of the Allegro con spirito; that the ensemble never lost
cohesion was a testimony to its marked improvement over the last few
seasons.

Violins that were divided left and right on the stage yielded heightened
clarity in the clockwork Andante. Mr. Vanska led a courtly Menuetto free of
expressive quirks, and spurred a breathless Presto finale.

The Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan, a 21-year-old past champion of
the Jean Sibelius and Queen Elisabeth competitions, made his New York debut
in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, a work that expanded Mozart’s model of a
virtuoso showcase into a forum for philosophical rumination. Lanky and
tousle-haired, Mr. Khachatryan projected intense concentration in the first
movement, his sweet tone and strikingly introverted phrasing suggesting
vulnerability and internal debate. He shaped his lines fastidiously and
executed them cleanly. Mr. Vanska, departing from his previous metronomic
precision, provided ideally flexible accompaniment.

Clocking in at 26 minutes, the opening movement felt slightly prolonged and
episodic. Still, Mr. Khachatryan’s rapt account of Fritz Kreisler’s cadenza
was quietly dazzling, and his gentle sound against the muted strings of the
Larghetto was bewitching. The orchestra seemed to breathe a collective sigh
of relief when unleashed at last in a buoyant Rondo, which elicited Mr.
Khachatryan’s most effusive playing.

The audience responded with a tumultuous ovation, and Mr. Khachatryan
rewarded those who lingered with the Largo from Bach’s Unaccompanied Sonata
No. 3, broadly spun and richly expressive.

Scripture provides inspiration for poet
By Rich Barlow | August 5, 2006

Boston Globe,MA
Aug 5, 2006

For 30 years, Patricia Giragosian labored in journalism and teaching,
but those were always a holding pattern while she sought her heart’s
destination, a poet’s career. "I felt I was being Lois Lane," she
says of her newspaper days. "My poetry is me."

Yet the need to pay the bills, plus literary stage fright, gave her
a stiff-necked resistance to publishing her work.

Then Giragosian, 53, of Boston, began exploring her family’s Christian
roots in the Armenian Apostolic Church. In particular, the counsel
in 1 Corinthians ("For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then
face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also
I am known.") reminded her that human time is short, that all can’t
be known now, that trust in the future is a precursor to living.

"To get to this point, I’ve had to clutch onto something, and my
spirituality has been a great source of strength," she says.

At last, things are breaking her way; she has been published in
several forums, was a finalist in a New York poetry competition,
and is writing full time.

It is a cultural stereotype, the solitary scribbler toiling for a
literary breakthrough by the dim light of a desk lamp. To struggling
writers, there’s little that’s romantic about this monastic
lifestyle. Last winter, a discussion sponsored by The Writers’
Room of Boston about the occupational hazards of penury, isolation,
and deadlines drew a crowd, reports Rabbi Susan Schnur, a writer who
assembled the panel.

Not all wordsmiths seek their solace and their muse in spirituality,
of course. But when you’re a writer and a rabbi, faith is as essential
as the word processor. Schnur compares spirituality in handling
inevitable literary setbacks with the Jewish mourning tradition of
sitting shiva. In writing, she says by e-mail, "one must learn to `sit
with’ and even `welcome’ the hard stuff: The first draft necessarily is
awful; the time spent on material that you later decide is irrelevant
to your project is par for the course; the days when all you do is
put in a comma and then take it out — yes, that’s what it means to
be a writer."

"Writing is lonely," says Myrna Patterson, a Cambridge poet and writing
teacher who fuses her Jewish heritage with Buddhist practices to combat
that loneliness. From Buddhism comes the idea that we shouldn’t grow
attached to anything, be it material goods or the loneliness of the
present moment; Patterson tries to pass on that wisdom by encouraging
students to meditate.

If writers’ block is their problem, pluck out preconceived notions,
she advises, and discard "any fixed idea of how things are going to
turn out."

Giragosian says she finds her poetry topics by the compass of faith.

The New Hampshire Review, in its current issue, published her "Portrait
of Gertrud Lowe," a haunting meditation prompted by the fate of the
title character, a real-life woman who posed for a painting in her
youth and who later perished in a Nazi concentration camp.

The poet gazes at the portrait, juxtaposing the innocent’s pose
with knowledge of what was to come. "No white dress / can save you /
from the Anschluss," she writes, continuing later:

Facing the easel, it was natural that your shoulders folded toward
your breasts to avert the artist’s gaze, just as they will turn the
moment you witness history’s obscenity one afternoon when stormtroopers
shoot the locks on the French doors of your house and kick down the
screen of your dressing room to pull you, napping from the burgundy
velvet cushions.

"I wanted to remember this particular woman," says the poet. "[She]
ended up in circumstances where her remains cannot be found, where no
one knows what happened. . . . I felt guided by my sense of spiritual
yearning and seeking some kinds of answers about why evil happens."

Her spiritual choices aren’t always grim. "Fenway," an ode to the
ballpark currently among poems on display at Boston City Hall,
is about generations passing on values to their successors and the
bonding that takes place when people visit that landmark. But whether
as cheery as a summer ball game or as chilling as Nazi pathology,
a writer’s subject can fulfill William Faulkner’s definition of his
craft’s spiritual mission:

"It is [the writer’s] privilege to help man endure by lifting his
heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride
and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of
his past."

MICHAEL PLATINI TO PROMOTE DEVELOPMENT OF ARMENIAN FOOTBALL

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Aug 4 2006

YEREVAN, August 4. /ARKA/. Michael Platini, vice-president of the
French Football Federation, member of the executive committees of the
FIFA and UEFA, will do its utmost to promote the development of the
Armenian football, Platini stated during his meeting with Armenian
Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan.

The press service and public relations department of the Armenian
government reported that Platini thanked the Armenian government
for the practical support to the Armenian Football Federation, that
without its support and investments it will be very difficult to
develop the football in the country.

Platini pointed out that visiting in Armenia for the first time,
he is infinitely impressed with the attitude of Armenians towards
football. "When small football fields were being opened, we noticed
how much energy and love children have towards football, and how eager
they are for sports. It is promising," Platini said and mentioned
the footballers of Armenian descent who made a contribution to the
development of the French football.

In his turn, Margaryan pointed out that he attaches much importance to
Platini’s visit, especially now, when Armenia is going to celebrate the
days of Armenia in France on a large scale. Margaryan pointed out the
big contribution of the legendary footballer to the development of the
Armenian football, particularly his assistance with the implementation
of useful initiatives for the Armenian football.

Margaryan emphasized such investment programs on football development
in Armenia as Goal FIFA, Het Trick UEFA, and also the program of
Small Football Fields.

According to him, these are the first large-scale projects. At the
present time about 15 sports fields are opened, and soon their number
will reach 40. On the whole, the prime minister welcomed such decisions
of the FIFA and UEFA, which will contribute to the development of
football in developing countries. R.O. –0–

Regnum, Russia
Aug 3, 2006

Karabakh human rights activist: "There are no Azerbaijani prisoners
of war in Nagorno Karabakh"

"The Azerbaijani authorities have been exaggerating the subject
of Azerbaijani prisoners of war in Karabakh captivity to conceal
the true number of its Army losses in the war imposed upon Nagorno
Karabakh. Instead of cooperating with Armenian and Azerbaijani NGOs
in solving this humanitarian problem, Baku is politicizing it,"
Karen Ohanjanyan, head of Helsinki Initiative ’92 organization,
commenting on a report by TURAN news agency, which says that allegedly
"Azerbaijani prisoners of war are being exploited in tunnels of gold
mines in Kelbajar District."

"Since May 12, 1995, there has been no prisoners of war and hostages
in Nagorno Karabakh. All of them were extradited to Azerbaijan. Today
there are only separate cases of Azerbaijani servicemen becoming
prisoners of war because of their attempts to carry out subversive
activity, however, Nagorno Karabakh authorities immediately inform
Stepanakert Office of the International Red Cross Committee and in
two or three months these prisoners are extradited to the Azeri side
with the Red Cross assistance," Karen Ohanjanyan stressed.

It is worth mentioning, recently, a regional conference on issues of
missing people with participation of Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian
and Nagorno Karabakh representatives initiated in the framework
of The Yellow Tulips Project with support of The Interchurch Peace
Council (the Netherlands) was held in the Nagorno Karabakh capital,
Stepanakert. The reporters spoke on carious aspects of the missing
people problem, gave a brief on history of cooperation of the Helsinki
Citizens Assembly in South Caucasus, role of mass media in solving
the problems of missing, attitudes of the governmental institutions
to the problem of missing.

Nizami Bahmanov makes serious remarks to Matthew Bryza

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Aug 1, 2006

Head of Azerbaijani community of Nagorno Garabagh Nizami Bahmanov met
with the US co-chair of OSCE Minsk Group Matthew Bryza in Baku today.

Mr.Bahmanov started the meeting with making remarks to the US
co-chair. APA reports Bahmanov told journalists. "My first remark
was that why our meeting was held at the Foreign Ministry not in
the office of the Azerbaijani community. The representative offices
of the executive powers of the occupied regions are located in our
office. We receive appeals from between 100 and 200 people every
day. So, I think our meeting there would be very efficient. As this
office directly reflects the consequences of the occupation it would
make the co-chair get some picture of the conflict," the Azerbaijani
community head underlined. Bahmanov’s another remark was about the
ignorance of international organizations, Minsk Group member states
as well as the co-chairs and their not criticizing the Armenian side.

"The entire world ignored the deportation of Azerbaijanis from
Armenia. International organizations, including the UN ignored
Armenians pursuing ethnic cleansing in Nagorno Garabagh and adjoining
regions supported by Russian military units. Arsons were committed in
the houses, historical monuments in the occupied Azerbaijani regions.

Despite the co-chairs’ regular visit to the region, no reaction was
given to this savagery, this crime. Neither the co-chairing states nor
the international organizations reacted to Armenians for the Khojali
genocide and striking of two Azerbaijani helicopters in 1992. However,
they demand the Azerbaijani government to demonstrate a political
will. What will is concerned? Azerbaijan is the most powerful state
in the region for its economic and military development. However,
Azerbaijani President has demonstrated his political will. I mean
to say since the powerful Azerbaijan is participating in the peace
talks, there cannot be more political will than that. Despite all
the crimes, since official Baku agrees to grant the highest status
to Armenians within the framework of territorial integrity, what
political will is concerned? I brought the co-chair’s attention to
all of these underlining that he’d better address to the aggressive
Armenia not to Azerbaijan," he said. Bahmanov also told the US
co-chair it is unacceptable to have negotiations under the flag of
the separatist regime. "My serious remark to the co-chair was that
he is negotiating in the cabinet of Arkadi Ghukasian, head of the
Armenian community under the flag of the separatist regime, which is
not recognized by any state, including the United States. Armenians do
not see any importance of these negotiations, it is like advertisement
for them. The co-chair agreed to these remarks saying that they wil
work on the plan of organizing meeting of Foreign Ministers after the
co-chairs’ meeting in Paris. He also added that Armenian authorities
have a political will to continue new proposals and the peace talks,"
he underlined.

Bahmanov also brought attention to Armenia’s intention to send its
citizens evacuated from Lebanon to Nagorno Garabagh. "Mr. Bryza
said the co-chairs will voice strong protest against this. He said
this is an unacceptable step contrary to international law norms. And
they aim to achieve peace through the negotiations between the heads
of states. He considers it impossible to send evacuated Armenians to
Nagorno Garabagh," Bahmanov said. As coming to the US co-chair’s new
proposals, Bahmanov said the elements of the negotiations remain the
same, "There are problems regarding pull-out of troops from Lachin
and Kalbajar and regarding the referendum."/APA/

US Senate Again Discusses Candidacy of New Ambassador to Armenia

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.08.2006 13:34 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ August 1 the US Senate will again discuss candidacy
of the new Ambassador to Armenia Richard Hoagland. According to the
regulations, the discussion may be stopped, if even one Senator
is against him and this happens very seldom. Nevertheless, the
Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) expects that at least
one Senator will do that. As already reported, the ANCA demands that
the US Congress do not confirm Richard Hoagland, as he did not express
a clear attitude towards the fact of the Armenian Genocide. Today
9 out of 18 Senators, who are members of Foreign Affairs Committee,
are against the new Ambassador, reports ANCA.

PRAVDA, Russia
July 28, 2006

Novelist Orhan Pamuk gains suit at law
Front page / Society
07/28/2006 13:23 Source:

A Turkish court on Friday dropped a lawsuit against novelist Orhan
Pamuk, rejecting a compensation demand by nationalists from the
author for claiming that Turkey had killed more than 1 million
Armenians and more than 30,000 Kurds.

Nationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz and five other nationalists were
seeking 6,000 Turkish Lira (US$4,500 or 3,700) each from Pamuk
accusing him of "insulting, humiliating and making false
accusations."

Pamuk was quoted as telling a Swiss newspaper that: "Thirty-thousand
Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody
but me dares to talk about it."

Kerincsiz had instigated an earlier high-profile court case against
Pamuk for the same comments, but those charges were dropped earlier
this year, under harsh criticism from the European Union, which
Turkey hopes to join.

Armenians say that as many as 1.5 million of their ancestors were
killing in an organized genocidal campaign by Ottoman Turks, and have
pushed for recognition of the killings as genocide around the world,
the AP reports.

Turkey vehemently denies that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman
Turks around the time of World War I was genocide. Turkey
acknowledges that large numbers of Armenians died, but says the
overall figure is inflated and that the deaths occurred in the civil
unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

5 Armenian judo players to participate in an international tournament in
Berlin

ArmRadio.am
28.07.2006 13:25

August 11-18 five young judo players of Armenia will participate in an
international tournament to be held in Berlin. The chief trainer of
the youth team of Armenia is Tigran Babayan. The team comprises Areg
sukiasyan and Paylak Vardanyan, Robert Vardanyan, Garik Gevorgyan and
Hakob Arakelyan.

Chief trainer of the youth team informs that this is the last serious
test for Armenian judo players on the eve of the European Youth Judo
Championship to be held September in Tallin.

The lesson of Suez has not yet been learned

The Scotsman – United Kingdom; Jul 27, 2006
George Kerevan

THIS week, 50 years ago, the Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser announced
to cheering crowds that he was nationalising the Suez Canal. This
sparked off a chain of events that led inexorably to Britain, France
and Israel invading Egypt. There are good reasons why the anniversary
of this extraordinary little war is being underplayed half a century
on, except of course in Egypt.

For one, having invaded Egypt and captured the canal, the Brits were
forced into instantaneous and ignominious retreat after America’s
President Eisenhower threatened to sink the pound. The British prime
minister, Anthony Eden, whose idea the whole adventure had been,
was humiliated and soon driven from office.

The Israelis drew the sensible conclusion that they could only rely
on themselves for security. Meanwhile, Nasser, whose utter military
incompetence had just lost him the first of many wars, turned defeat
into political victory and became the hero of the Arab masses.

Now that British troops are back in the business of invading Arab
states, and Israel is slugging it out with Hezbollah in Leb-anon, are
there any lessons we can still learn from the Suez debacle? The main
one is that the use of force has to be very well judged, otherwise
you end up in a bigger mess than when you started.

Looking back on Suez in 1956, it is obvious that the British hadn’t
a clue what their own end game was. Having captured the canal,
it suddenly became blindingly obvious that there was no neat exit –
except the first boat home. Were we hoping somebody nicer than Nasser
would just pop out of the woodwork, or were we going to bring back
King Farouk from exile?

That’s not to say we should romanticise Gamal Nasser, who happily
recruited ex-Nazis – actually, they were anything but ex – to help
run his military, in the hope of throwing the Jews into the sea. And
Nasser’s pan-Arab nationalism was premised on ignoring the rights
of the ancient ethnic minorities of the Middle East – Jews, Assyrian
Christians, Armenians, Druze and Copts.

But in retrospect, Nasser seems to have been more bluff than
action. Without Suez, we might have turned Egypt into another India –
wary of the West, non-aligned but not a threat. Especially if we’d
accepted Egyptian ownership of the canal and funded the Aswan Dam. As
it was, when Nasser died in 1970, Egypt quietly slipped back into
the western orbit.

Here’s my worry about what’s happening in Lebanon today: like Suez,
we don’t have a political end game for when the shooting stops. Britain
waded into Egypt in 1956 with no idea how to get out. Lebanon in 2006
is different in that Israel did not start the fight. But I fear the
Israelis are making it up as they go along, which is just as risky.

Hezbollah is the armed proxy for the Iranians, who now dominate
politically the crescent running from south Lebanon through Syria to
Shiite Iraq. The Israelis, whether you like it or not, are trying to
give Hezbollah and the Iranians a bloody nose before they get too
bumptious and start making use of their strategic hold over a big
chunk of the world’s oil.

It was inevitable that Hezbollah would eventually provoke the Israelis
into defending themselves. Once the die was cast two weeks ago,
when Hezbollah unilaterally started firing rockets and kidnapping
Israeli hostages, the Israelis had little choice but to go in and
do something about it. The problem, as I see it, lies in the tactics
the Israelis have been forced to employ.

WITH aid from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah has turned
south Lebanon into a series of minefields and fortifications, forcing
the Israelis to resort to air strikes to wear the enemy down rather
than embark on a costly frontal assault. Unfortunately, even with
precision-guided bombs, this is next to impossible to achieve, never
mind the fact that the Israelis lack the local intelligence to know
where Hezbollah elements are hiding. As a result, we have seen a lot
of buildings blown up, and hundreds of thousands of people fleeing as
refugees. But, as of yesterday, Hezbollah’s capacity to fire rockets
seemed unimpaired.

Hezbollah cannot be let off the hook through an unconditional
ceasefire. That would hand it a victory we will live to regret in
Iraq as well as Israel. But equally, Israel cannot have extended time
merely to drop more bombs in the hope that they hit something.

Israel has not grasped the significance of the changes in the Middle
and Near East brought about by the rise of Iran. The game is no
longer one of Israel using its military strength against a divided
and incompetent Arab world. It is now facing a new Persian Empire,
which is an altogether more dangerous foe, especially if Tehran
acquires nuclear weapons. Israel cannot win that fight alone.

Which is why there has to be a political solution to the Lebanese
crisis as soon as possible, and that has to come from America. It
should be the most important thing on President Bush’s agenda. I fear
it is not.

The Lebanese state has to be persuaded to disarm Hezbollah. Syria has
to be pressured into breaking with Iran (in return for discussions
over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights). The Arab world – which is
no friend of Hezbollah or Iran – needs to be convinced that if it
supports Hezbollah being neutralised, America and Britain will put
a Palestinian state at the top of their agenda.

Suez in 1956 was a military success and a political failure. Lebanon
2006 is running the risk of being both a military failure and a
political one.

RETRAINING WORKSHOP FOR ECONOMIC JOURNALIST TO BE HELD IN YEREVAN

Arka News Agency, Armenia
July 25, 2006

YEREVAN, July 25. /ARKA/. The Competitive Armenian Private
Sector Project (CAPSC) is organizing a retraining workshop for
Armenian journalists specializing in economic subjects on July 31.
The CAPSP reports that the goal of the workshop is explaining to local
journalists the main tasks of competitiveness as well as facilitating
the enhancement of competitiveness in certain fields of Armenia’s
economy. The workshop participants will also discuss such topics as
"Determining the economic competitiveness of a company, cluster or
country", "Methods of encouragement of long-term changes in certain
countries", "CAPSP’s approaches to tasks of this type in Armenia",
and "Building up cooperation with Armenian mass media". Among the
workshop participants will be Director of the research center "Economy
and Values" Manuk Hergnyan, who is to present a modern-day concept
of competitiveness and its application in Armenia.

During the second part, CAPSP’s representatives will present the
results of their work in the IT and tourist spheres. A wide range
of competitiveness-related issues will be considered at the final
press conference. The goal of the USAID-sponsored CAPSP is raising
the employment level in Armenia through encouraging the development
and improving the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises
of the country.

The CAPSP envisages the formation of task groups in each economic
sector, improvement of business abilities, as well as contribution
to the formation of labor force and development of skills. P.T. -0–