Author: Emil Lazarian

Music opens Armenian soul, history
Dilijan chamber group plays heartfelt selections
Los Angeles Daily News
4/09/2006
By Alex Dobuzinskis, Staff writer
GLENDALE – Performing the classics to open a window into the Armenian
soul, the directors of the fledgling Dilijan chamber music series have
chosen composers who offer turbulent life stories.
They include an Armenian priest and composer who ended up in an insane
asylum after being deported by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, and a
Russian-trained composer of Armenian descent who was sanctioned by the
Soviet “music police” for creating pieces deemed too abstract.
The Dilijan series has also sought to present the work of emerging
composers, especially those of Armenian descent.
After Armenia’s long history of being ruled by the Ottoman Empire and
then the Soviet Union, the nation’s composers are finally coming into
their own, said Vatsche Barsoumian, a Glendale-based creator of the
Dilijan series. And as Armenian composers create new music, the series
is bringing their work to Southern California audiences.
“Now that (Armenia is) relatively independent,” Barsoumian said, “we are
trying to find out and experiment with sound that is closest to our
heart and experiences as Armenians, without any impediments.”
Dilijan, in its inaugural season, brings together small groups of
musicians to play classical music, using the Colborn School of Music in
downtown Los Angeles as a venue and operating out of the Glendale office
of the nonprofit Lark Musical Society.
The series is not dedicated only to compositions by Armenians. It has
already featured the work of classical music heavyweights Josef Haydn,
Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms.
And many of the 26 professional musicians involved in the project are
also not of Armenian descent. Phil O’Connor, 33, who plays clarinet and
saxophone, said he has enjoyed being part of the series.
“In the chamber music setting, because it’s less people involved, you
have more ability for everyone to interject their opinion and … you
can develop a group interpretation much more readily than you would in a
symphony,” O’Connor said.
Artistic director Movses Pogossian, 39, of Montrose is a violinist who
made his American debut in 1990 as a soloist with the Boston Pops.
A native of Armenia who taught music at universities in Pittsburgh,
Bowling Green and Detroit, he is impressed by Los Angeles musicians who
are just as comfortable playing at a movie studio as a symphony hall.
“Musically it’s the busiest city in America,” Pogossian said. “I think
it has the greatest number of great musicians in the country.”
On April 21, in a show called “Armenian Genocide Commemoration,”
Pogossian and five other musicians will perform the last installment of
the Dilijan series. The show comes a few days before the date when
Armenians mark the 1915 deportations and killings in the Ottoman Empire
that claimed the lives of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians.
One of the pieces chosen for the evening is a work by the Armenian
priest and composer Komitas. He was deported by the Ottoman Turks in
1915 and narrowly escaped death, but the experience put him in an insane
asylum and he died a few years later.
The April 21 show will also feature work by the living Armenian composer
Tigran Mansurian, and the late French composer Olivier Messiaen’s
“Quartet for the End of Time,” which was written in a German prison camp
during World War II.
“Instead of bringing out the dark and tragic in the piece, basically
Messiaen is singing the glory to God and it’s an incredibly positive and
life-affirming piece,” Pogossian said.
On Oct. 20, the series presented a unique show called “Condemned by
Stalin,” highlighting three Soviet composers who fell out of favor with
dictator Joseph Stalin. They include Aram Khatchaturian, a
Russian-trained composer of Armenian descent.
“They thought that he was trying to do some advanced modernistic
styles,” Barsoumian said.
The other two composers were Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich.
“Their music was going to be checked by people who acted like policemen,
music policemen,” Barsoumian said.
For more information on the Dilijan chamber music series, go to
Contact: [email protected], (818) 546-3304
87
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESS OFFICE
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern)
630 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Contact: Jake Goshert, Coordinator of Information Services
Tel: (212) 686-0710 Ext. 60; Fax: (212) 779-3558
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:
April 11, 2006
___________________
TRADITIONAL ARMENIAN LAMB DINNER AT ST. VARTAN CATHEDRAL
Easter is a time for families to come together and celebrate.
This year, a beloved St. Vartan Cathedral tradition is back. The New York
City cathedral will once again hold its Easter luncheon, a highly
anticipated event in the community during which families and the larger
community gather and enjoy the glad tidings of the season.
This year the luncheon will feature a truly traditional multi-course
luncheon, featuring lamb and other Armenian delicacies.
The luncheon will follow the badarak on Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006. The
program during the luncheon will feature a performance from the Yeraz dance
group.
“We encourage all Armenians to join us, gather with us as we mark this great
day,” said Fr. Mardiros Chevian, dean of the St. Vartan Cathedral.
Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, Primate of the Diocese, will celebrate the
Divine Liturgy at 10:30 a.m. on April 16. The luncheon will follow in the
cathedral’s Haik and Alice Kavookjian Auditorium (630 Second Ave. at 34th
St. in New York City).
Tickets for the luncheon and program are $30 for adults and $20 for children
under 12. Tables of 8 or 10 can be reserved by calling the Diocese at (212)
686-0710. Other tickets will be available at the door.
— 4/11/06
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

POLICE FOUND AND ARRESTED CRIMINAL WHO TRIED TO KILL ROUSTAM GASPARIAN, HEAD OF ARMAVIR OFFICE OF “YERKRAPAH” UNION
Yerevan, April 10.ArmInfo. Nerses Nazarian, head of the Yerevan Police,
informed that they found and arrested the criminal who attempted
to kill Roustam Gasparian, head of “Armavir” Office of “Yerkrapah”
Union. He said this at today’s’ press conference but he didn’t tell
the name of the criminal.
It’s worth mentioning that on April 1 someone attacked the car of
Gasparian. The unknown criminals opened fire at the car. As a result,
Gasparian was wounded.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

THE RIVAL OF THE ARMENIAN CLUB WILL BE FROM GEORGIA
A1+
[03:48 pm] 11 April, 2006
The casting of lots of 2006 “Intertoto” Cup Tournaments was held in
the UEFA Office as a result of which one of the Armenian clubs is to
meet a Georgian representative in June.
Armenia will be more likely presented by the club “Kilikia”
in the tournament. The latter won the 5th place in the previous
championship. “Kilikia” is not in a perfect state at present and it
hardly beat “Banants – 2” with 11- meter goals. By the way, the chief
coach of “Kilikia” Samvel Darbinyan has been recently dismissed from
his position and his responsibilities are now being carried out by
23 -year – old Sergey Aghababyan.
Provided “Kilikia” wins Armenian Cup Tournament, the bronze price
winner of the previous championship “Banants” will participate in the
“Intertoto” Cup Tournaments but this version is less probable.
It is not known which team will present Georgia. Let us remind you
that this is not the first time “the football roads” of the 2 countries
are not crossed.
They last met in the first phase of the 2005 UEFA Cup Tournaments when
“Banants” beat “Lokomotiv.”
Provided the Armenian club overcomes the ban of the 2006 “Intertoto”
Cup Tournaments its rival will be the representative from Austria. The
tournament will start on June 17 – 18.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

METSAMOR POWER PLANT TO REMAIN NATIONAL
Lragir.am
10 April 06
The government of Armenia introduced important changes into the Bill of
Amendments to the Law on Energy, including elimination of government
monopoly in nuclear energy, stated Speaker Arthur Baghdasaryan on
April 10. According to Arthur Baghdasaryan, under the bill the nuclear
station remains national and cannot be privatized.
As another important point, Arthur Baghdasaryan mentioned the amendment
on regulating the construction of a new nuclear plant by a separate
law. “It is a serious political agreement,” stated the speaker of
the National Assembly.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

HEAD OF POLICE OF YEREVAN COMPLAINED OF PEOPLE
Lragir.am
10 April 06
>From January to March the rate of housebreaking in Yerevan doubled,
stated the head of the Police of Yerevan Nerses Nazaryan on April
10. According to him, informs the news agency ARKA, in the past three
years 110 cases of housebreaking were reported in the capital against
the 57 cases reported in the same period of 2005. Nerses Nazaryan
stated that at each police department there is a unit responsible
for security of houses. “Unfortunately, people hardly ever turn to
these units for help,” complained the head of the Police of Yerevan.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ACADEMY OF ART PLANS TO ESTABLISH ORCHESTRA
Mehr News Agency, Iran
April 10 2006
TEHRAN, Apr. 10 (MNA) — The Academy of Art is planning to establish
an orchestra of string instruments, the Persian service of CHN reported
on Monday.
The orchestra, which will probably be called the Academy of Art
Orchestra, is to be conducted by veteran musician Shahin Farhat.
Farhat said that the orchestra would begin with fifteen musicians
and would perform at seminars held by the academy, adding that it
would record the music produced by the academy or other Iranian
organizations.
“The ‘Iran Symphony’, recorded in Armenia with the Armenian
Philharmonic Orchestra, was sponsored by the Academy of Art, so the
academy must have an orchestra of its own so we don’t have to go to
Armenia for recordings,” he noted.
The academy’s program for this year includes workshops on publishing
old music manuscripts, studying the music of the Isfahan School in
the Safavid era, and Iran’s dastgahi music. In Iranian music, a set
of notes, their special characteristics, and an associated group of
traditional melodies that constitute a basis for improvised performance
is called a dastgah.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

THE NEXT MEETING OF THE SINGLE PARTY OF PEOPLE’S FRONT OF AZERBAIJAN TOOK PLACE
Author: J. Shahverdiyev
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
April 10 2006
The next meeting of the Single Party of People `s Front (SPPF) of
Azerbaijan took place. The issue of future visit of the head of state
to US has been discussed at the meeting, Trend reports.
MPs have highly evaluated this visit, emphasizing the importance
of Azerbaijani- American relations development and strengthening
of the strategic partnership. It was stated that US have to stop
aiding Armenia within the frames of Millennium Call program and
other humanitarian projects, as Armenia still did not free the
occupied Azerbaijani territories on the basis of 4 UN Security
council resolutions.
Recent events in Iraq were also discussed at the meeting. It was
noted that dislocation of the coalition troops in Iraq pushes it more
and more to civil war. MPs argued that during his visit Azerbaijani
president should raise the matter of Azerbaijanis living in Iran in
case of military campaign against that state.

GAS PAINS FONT SIZE
By Evgeny Morozov : BIO| 10 Apr 2006
TCS Daily, DC
April 10 2006
As of April 1, Moldova and Armenia were to start paying $110-twice the
2005 price-for a thousand cubic meters of gas bought from Gazprom,
the Russian energy behemoth. This was part of Gazprom’s campaign of
fighting “price socialism,” as Aleksei Miller, the company’s CEO,
termed the subsidized sale of Russian gas to countries of the former
Soviet bloc.
What really happened in Moldova and Armenia before, on, and after April
1 proved that Gazprom’s intentions are not grounded in the realms of
free-market thinking, but aim to support the new reconfiguration of
Russian foreign policy, in which the Russian energy base serves as
a powerful way to restore the country’s position in the world. This
reconfiguration surfaced as early as 1999, when President Vladimir
Putin wrote that “Russia’s emergence from its deep crisis and
restoration of its former power” is preconditioned on the state’s
use of the country’s natural resources.
Now, seven years later, the crisis is over; it is restoration time.
This explains why a few days before the April 1 deadline, Moldova
agreed to continue buying Russian gas at the 2005 price for yet
another quarter in exchange for creating more joint projects with
Gazprom. Gazprom already has a majority of 50 percent plus one in
Moldovagaz, the joint Russian-Moldovan venture responsible for gas
shipments of Russian gas to the country. Gazprom has also been trying
to increase its share to 75 percent, and might as well succeed even
by the end of the year.
Armenia chose a different path and accepted the higher price.
However, its government is in talks with Moscow to alleviate the burden
by entering another “property in exchange for debt” agreement, which
would swap the energy debt for a transfer of state-owned property
to Russia (Armenia already used this scheme once; thus, five of its
companies, predominantly in the science and energy sectors, are now
controlled by Russia).
This time, the “exchange” might include the under-construction
Iran-Armenia pipeline and/or the fifth block of the Hrazdan Power
Plant. Without the exchange, the Armenians will have a hard time
coping with the burden of increased gas prices (beginning April 10,
Armenia increases its gas tariff by 52.2 percent for residents, by 85.2
percent for companies, which would have a dire effect on the economy).
Lithuania, which as a member of the EU might be tempted to feel
safer than Armenia or Moldova, faced another Russian take-over of its
Mazeikiu Oil Complex, part of the Yukos heritage in the country. The
bidding process started by the Lithuanian government to sell the
Mazeikiu to foreign investors was hampered on March 29, when the
Moscow Arbitration Court gave a ruling in favor of the state-owned
Rosneft to claim Mazeikiu as part of its campaign to settle the Yukos
“tax arrears” to the state. The situation has been so grave that the
Lithuanian government is considering nationalizing Mazeikiu based on
a threat to national security clause.
Pro-Russia Belarus, which already struck a deal with Moscow over of
gas supplies until 2020, hoped that the same agreement could have been
made about the prices. However, the cunning Kremlin caught Belarusian
President Alexander Lukashenko when he was most vulnerable: amidst
an intensifying protest campaign (with the biggest protest planed
for April 26, the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster) and
reportedly in bad health (Lukashenko suddenly disappeared for two
weeks and rescheduled his inauguration for no apparent reason).
Now, Gazprom wants what it had been trying to get for almost a decade:
either form a joint-venture or obtain full ownership of the Beltransgaz
pipeline, one of the two pipelines that carry the Russian gas to Europe
through Belarus (the second pipeline is Yamal-Europe, and it is fully
owned by Gazprom, with Belarus only leasing the land on which it is
built). With the North European Gas Pipeline looming on the horizon,
Lukashenko has little bargaining leverage (this pipeline might make
the Beltransgaz route even less relevant). The most likely outcome
in his gas war is that Belarus gives up the Beltransgaz pipeline,
and Russia tries to recapture what it has lost in Ukraine through
the murky deal with RosUkrEnergo.
The growing bonhomie along the Beijing-Moscow axis is also worth
noting. Among the 22 contracts that the 800-member Putin’s team had
signed in Beijing in late March, the most important ones had to deal
with the creation of two natural gas pipelines (each about 1,800
miles long) from Russia to China. This would place Russia at the top
of China’s energy suppliers.
What impact can it have on Europe? In the words of Sergei V.
Kupriyanov, a Gazprom spokesman, “Gazprom will fulfill all its current
contracts and obligations to Europe. However, the future increases
in gas supplies to Europe — in response to its growing demand —
will be subject to arbitrage between China and European countries.”
It appears that Moscow has a grand strategy of pitting Western and
Eastern Europe and Asia all against each other. Judging by the recent
developments in Moldova, Armenia, Lithuania, Belarus, and China, it
might be more disruptive than many in Brussels, Warsaw, or Beijing
are prepared to realize.
The author is a columnist for the Russian newspaper Akzia.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA THREATENS TO DROP OUT OF PEACE TALKS
Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
posted on April 10 2006
Baku, April 7, AssA-Irada
Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian made destructive statements
during the recent discussions on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper (Nagorno)
Garabagh conflict with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow.
Oskanian said the conflict settlement will be specified over the next
two months. He said if official Baku accepts the right of Garabagh
Armenians to self-determination, “Yerevan and Khankandi will be ready
to consider all the issues involved afterwards”. Otherwise, Armenia
will not participate in the talks concerning Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity and the return of Azeri refugees home, Oskanian maintained.
“Granting Upper Garabagh’s Armenian residents the right to
self-administration should be taken as the main principle. If this
position of ours is not taken as a basis in the negotiating process,
Armenia will not be involved in addressing the problems of the persons
displaced by the conflict,” the Armenian minister alleged.
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said the OSCE Minsk Group (MG)
mediation allows the conflicting sides to reach an accord. The
co-chairs are constantly working on proposals on the conflict
resolution that could help the parties to move the peace process
forward, he said.
“We do not disclose the details, as this is not in our authority,
but that of the parties to the conflict. But the Minsk Group has some
proposals that could be deemed as key for the conflict settlement,”
Lavrov said.
While in Moscow, Oskanian also met with the Russian co-chair of the
OSCE MG Yuri Merzlyakov.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress