Author: nina hovnanian

Nora Sourouzian – New Music

This fascinating mezzo-soprano uses her psychology degree to
understand the complexities of her characters, says Rupert
Christiansen

Opera singer Nora Sourouzian

By Rupert Christiansen

8:00AM BST 18 Oct 2014

Who is she?

Nora Sourouzian is a velvet-voiced mezzo-soprano from Canada with an
arresting stage personality.

What is her background?

Her Armenian father always wanted to be a classical musician and
ensured that his daughter received a sound musical education. After
study at McGill University, she decided to further her career in
Europe, making her debut at the Wexford Festival in 2005, singing the
title-role in Fauré’s Pénélope.

Where can I hear her?

After triumphantly assuming two contrasting title-roles in “the crazy
challenge” of a double bill of Massenet’s Thérèse and La Navarraise in
2013, she returns to Wexford this month to sing Herodias in Mariotte’s
Salomé – an opera unjustly overshadowed by Richard Strauss’ version,
composed at exactly the same time and similarly drawn on Oscar Wilde’s
play. “In some ways,” Sourouzian says, “I think Mariotte’s music is
more profound than that of Strauss. And his Herodias is a wonderful
study of a woman who longs for power.”

What does she do next?

For most of next year she will be performing Carmen, a role she has
already sung many times all over Europe, the US and Japan: “There are
so many facets to the characters that I don’t get bored,” she says.
“It’s like being married to someone for 30 years who can still
surprise you!” One remaining ambition is to sing Didon in Berlioz’s
Les Troyens. “I love the music so much, I feel I’m destined for it!”

What about her life outside music?

She recently moved with her partner from Zurich to Copenhagen, where
she uses any spare time to study part-time for a degree in psychology.
“It helps me understand the motivations of these complex women I
play,” she explains.

Salomé opens at the Wexford Festival on 22 October (00353 53 92 2144)

Expert: Armenia’s path and prospects in Eurasian Economic Union are vague

by David Stepanyan

ARMINFO
Saturday, October 18, 15:41

Armenia’s path and prospects in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)
are vague. The EAEU founders themselves do not know what to anticipate
and are trying to minimize the risks for their economies in every
possible way, Hovhannes Igityan, expert at the European Business
Association, member of the Board of the Armenian National Movement
Party, told the media on Friday.

On October 10, the Agreement on Armenia’s Accession to the EAEU was
signed. The Agreement is expected to come into effect after being
ratified by the Parliaments of Armenia, Russia, Belarus and
Kazakhstan. To note, the period of the waivers in the 160-page
document ranges from 4 to 8 years.

“I think more and more details of Armenia’s accession to the EAEU will
be emerging given the EAEU leaders’ big efforts towards protection of
their economic independence. Today Kazakhstan is signing a big trade
agreement with the European Union and becoming an EAEU member with
reservations implying observance of agreements with the EU. In this
light, Armenia, which has a number of trade and economic agreements
with Europe, raises no reservations. Meanwhile, Yerevan could have
reminded Moscow of these agreements and could have told Moscow about
the intention to observe them, which stems from Armenia’s interests. I
think Russia would not have objected to this if it wants to benefit
from a union with economically developed Armenia”, he said.

As regards the prospects of the re-launch of the Abkhaz railway
section, Igityan stressed that notwithstanding Armenia’s accession to
the EAEU this prospect is still vague given the extremely political
nature of the problem in the EAEU. According to him, Moscow may
declare what it wishes but the fact is that the project cannot be
implemented without Georgia. Tbilisi is not going to take any steps
yet given its precisely opposite integration preferences. “The
political discrepancies between Russia and Georgia hinder the
re-launch of the Abkhaz railway section. Unfortunately, no one will do
it for the sake of Armenia. Moreover, our main problem is not the
transportation but the customs tariffs of the imported goods”, he
said.
According to the survey of International Alert NGO (UK), the potential
costs of rehabilitation of the South Caucasus railways, in particular
the Sochi-Sukhumi-Tbilisi-Yerevan railway will total $277.5 mln, which
can pay for no earlier than in 100 years. The restoration of the 190km
section Psou-Inguri will cost $251 million. The Inguri-Zugdigi
section will cost $26.5 million. The section from Zugdigi to Tbilisi
and farther to Yerevan needs no repair. It is noteworthy that
Abkhazian experts estimate the rehabilitation of the railway at
$350-$400 million. Meanwhile, Georgian experts claim that the project
will cost some $73 million.

Filipino tourists impressed by Armenia

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS: The Filipino website Sun.Star.com
published quite an interesting article about Armenia. Armenpress
reports that the Filipino tourist Celyn Sala told about the
impressions he got from the trip. The article is as follows:
“Writing about my recent trip to Armenia is not going to be easy –
there are just too many great experiences to note down!

Friends and family were wondering what got into our heads when we
decided to go there. Where and what is there to do? And why of all
places Armenia? You’ll soon see why. Armenia is honestly one of the
most gorgeous countries I’ve been to. Armenia is right smack in the
middle of four other nations: Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Iran.

It’s made up of mostly landmass and is not bordered by any seas. It is
a dominantly Christian country and was the first in the world to adopt
Christianity as their state religion. It is also one of the oldest
countries in the world. It is known as Noah’s land, for in the bible
it is said that his ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat.

In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark
rested upon the mountains of Ararat. (Genesis 8:5)

The moment we landed in Yerevan, we immediately saw a rather faint,
but rather clear outline of Mt. Ararat. We also saw it from above,
while on the plane, and it got us so excited to see the famed mountain
of Noah on the very first day.

Yerevan is such a beautiful city. It had a very European feel, is
clean, modern but with touches of culture and architecture from
another era. Our hotel was located at Republic Square. At night, the
scene transformed. Imagine the sight with fountains, lit up buildings
and Andrea Bocelli’s Time to Say Goodbye playing in the background. It
was gorgeous! The city is also called the rose colored capital because
most of its buildings are built in a pink shade of “tuf” stone.

We spent the majority of the trip in Yerevan and would just drive out
every day to visit the sights. The Armenian countryside is very
pleasant and each drive always yielded different views.

One fun thing we did while on one of our drives out to the tourist
sites was to stop by the road and pick up some obsidian. There is so
much of it in the country!

A lot of the sights that we went to were monasteries. I’ll have to say
I was pretty much blown away almost every time I visited a new one.

Each one had a more fantastic location than the last. There were
dramatic backdrops like gorges, valleys and mountains, while locations
were usually in the middle of nowhere.

One of the first ones we visited were the churches that were
overlooking Lake Sevan. This lake is the largest body of water in
Armenia and is situated pretty high above sea level at 1,900 meters.

The next was the Khor Virap monastery. This was supposed to be where
you could get the best views of Mt. Ararat and its snowy peaks, but it
was covered with fog on the day that we went. There were some vendors
selling doves, which you could release in the direction of Mt. Ararat.

Sounded like another one of those tourist traps, but of course, one of
my sisters still bought one. Why not though, right? When else can you
say you released a dove out into a biblical mountain? It was still a
fun and funny experience (She had to carry the bird up lots of steps
and it would not stop twitching!).

Khor Virap also had St. Gregory the Illuminator’s underground pit. St.

Gregory is the country’s patron saint and is credited for converting
Armenia from paganism to Christianity.

The next monastery, Noravank, was my favorite. The mountains
surrounding it were all red rock and jagged stones.

A visit to Geghard Monastery, which is carved from a single rock, was
a must. It had really amazing acoustics, that when one person sings,
it sounds like a whole choir! We also went to Sanahin and Haghpat
monasteries, both of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Saghmosavank Monastery is a monastery that is perched at the edge of
the precipitous gorge of the Kasakh River”.

NPR – National Public Radio , USA
Oct 18 2014

The Man Who Coined ‘Genocide’ Spent His Life Trying To Stop It

by NPR Staff

The world has grown far too familiar with genocide; as mass killings
have claimed countless lives, the word has become ingrained into our
vocabularies.

But the term didn’t exist until 1943, when Polish lawyer Raphael
Lemkin coined it — pairing the Greek “genos,” meaning race or family,
with the Latin “-cidere,” for killing. Lemkin, who witnessed the
massacres of the early 20th century, spent his life campaigning to
make the world acknowledge and prosecute the crime.

A new documentary, Watchers of the Sky, tells his story. Once he’d
established the word, Lemkin worked persistently in the
then-newly-formed United Nations, hounding delegates to discuss his
new word and acknowledge the issue.

“This was a man who didn’t speak English very well, he didn’t
represent a country, he didn’t represent an institution, he barely had
a home, he barely had food — and yet he was there every day lobbying
to the delegates and the ambassadors to make this a crime,” says Edet
Belzberg, director of the film.

Lemkin was born in Poland in 1900, and was instilled with a sense of
justice at a very young age. As a teenager, he paid close attention to
the massacre of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

He came across the story of Soghomon Tehlirian, who saw his whole
family killed, but survived. Tehlirian later killed one of the
masterminds of the massacre, Talaat Pasha, who was living freely.
Tehlirian was arrested and went on trial.

“Lemkin read about this and at a young age he said to himself, ‘Why is
the killing of an individual a greater crime than the killing of
millions?’ ” Belzberg explains. “And that really set him on his path,
and he decided at that age that he was going to be the person who
would develop and create the law to stop this from happening again.”

At first, Belzberg says, people saw him as a pest. They hoped he would
give up his preoccupation with mass killings. Then Lemkin — who was of
Jewish descent — lost 49 members of his family to the Holocaust, and
his determination grew even stronger.

Lemkin continued to fight genocide for his entire life. He died of a
heart attack at the age of 59, while on his way to yet another
meeting. Fewer than a dozen people attended his funeral.

Watchers of the Sky weaves Lemkin’s story — with quotes from his notes
and journals — with stories of modern conflicts in Rwanda and Darfur,
Sudan. The documentary includes interviews with people who continue
the crusade against genocide, like Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to
the United Nations, and Luis Moreno Ocampo, the first Prosecutor of
the International Criminal Court.

Belzberg worked from 800 hours of footage and 5,000 stills to tell a
story that spans a century. “That was the biggest challenge,” Belzberg
says: “to interweave in a coherent and lyrical way that people can be
taken from one story to the next and not be fatigued, but be enriched
by it.”

*****

Interview Highlights

On Lemkin’s belief in the importance of finding a word for the crime

He believed that if he could find the right word, if he could find the
word that would unite people, that would ignite people to come
together to stop these crimes. He was very good at languages –he spoke
about seven languages — and he thought that there wasn’t a word that
described the horror of this crime. And so he set off on a path to do
that.

On Lemkin’s personal experience with genocide as a Polish Jew

Forty-nine members of his family were killed in the Holocaust. He
tried, of course, to persuade his family to leave with him in 1939 —
he knew what was coming and he tried to persuade his family to go with
him to America. And they said they would be fine. And although he was
thinking about these crimes before, after that, he was thinking, my
God, there has to be something that … would outrage people in the
same way that he was outraged by this.

On Lemkin’s work during and after the Nuremberg trials

After having coined this word, he went to Nuremberg … to try and get
them to use this word. Genocide was not a crime at that time … they
couldn’t prosecute for genocide. … That left Lemkin completely
heartbroken. …

He understood that there was a flaw in what was happening, that had
Hitler not invaded Poland and had he killed all the Jews in Germany,
at that time, he wouldn’t have been committing a crime that could have
been prosecuted by Nuremberg.

That’s what really enraged Lemkin: He felt that a leader shouldn’t
have to cross a border in order to held accountable for their crimes.
He felt that crimes against humanity and war crimes weren’t enough and
so he continued his cause, and he then took it to the United Nations
and he continued lobbying the leaders there to make this an
international crime. And he continued until his death.

CHAMPIONNAT D’ALLEMAGNE DE FOOTBALL
Retour sans éclat d’Henrikh Mkhitaryan en Bundesliga après un mois
d’absence pour blessure

Après un mois d’arrêt pour blessure, l’international arménien Henrikh
Mkhitaryan était de retour ce samedi après-midi au Borussia Dortmund
face au FC Cologne pour le compte de la 8ème journée du championnat
d’Allemagne. L’Arménien fit un match prudent. Il était donc en dessous
de son niveau habituel et de sa créativité. Il fut averti pour
simulation (26e minute), fit un jeu honorable mais ne donna donc pas
toute sa puissance sur le match. Henrikh Mkhitaryan fut remplacé à la
72e minute par l’ex-joueur de Saint-Etienne, Pierre-Emerick
Aubameyang. En manque de réussite depuis le début de la saison,
Borussia Dortmund concéda une défaite sur le score de 1-2 face à une
équipe de Cologne plus audacieuse. Avec seulement 7 points en 8
rencontres, le Borussia Dortmund est classée 14ème

Krikor Amirzayan

dimanche 19 octobre 2014,
Krikor Amirzayan (c)armenews.com

KARABAGH
L’armée arménienne du Karabagh met en garde l’Azerbaïdjan

Les forces armées arméniennes du Haut-Karabagh ont menacé mardi soir
de répondre fortement à ce qu’ils ont appelé une forte hausse des
violations du cessez-le-feu par les forces azerbaïdjanaises déployés
près du territoire contesté. >, a déclaré le ministère de la
Défense du Karabagh dans un communiqué publié au lendemain d’une
attaque où l’un de ses soldats a été blessé.

La déclaration a exhorté l’Azerbaïdjan à >. a-t-il dit.

dimanche 19 octobre 2014,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

ARMENIE
De nombreux Arméniens interdits d’émigrer en Russie

Près de 30000 citoyens arméniens ont été interdits cette année de
rentrer en Russie pour avoir violé les règles russes d’immigration
selon un haut responsable du gouvernement arménien.

Gagik Yeganian, le chef du Service des migrations d’Arménie, a déclaré
jeudi que ces arméniens ont été mis à l’index par les autorités russes
après un durcissement récent des conditions de résidence pour les
étrangers travaillant en Russie.

Le gouvernement russe a facilité cet été certaines de ces règles pour
les ressortissants arméniens en raison de l’imminence de l’adhésion de
l’Arménie à l’Union économique eurasiatique (UEE). Mais selon Gagik
Yeganian, la Russie a refusé jusqu’à présent de retirer la grande
majorité des Arméniens de la liste noire, beaucoup d’entre eux étant
des travailleurs migrants de retour dans le pays.

Gagik Yeganian a dit au service arménien de RFE / RL (Azatutyun.am)
qu’il a soulevé la question avec le chef du Service fédéral des
migrations de Russie (FMS), Konstantin Romodanovsky, lors de
pourparlers à Erevan plus tôt cette semaine. Romodanovsky a promis que
le FMS examinera à nouveau leur cas, a-t-il dit.

Les données du FMS indiquent que 500 000 citoyens arméniens vivaient
en Russie en Novembre 2013. Des centaines de milliers d’autres
Arméniens sont soupçonnés d’avoir obtenu la citoyenneté russe au cours
des deux dernières décennies. Les envois annuels de fonds de plusieurs
millions de dollars aident à soutenir une partie considérable de la
population d’Arménie.

Sofia Gabrielian a vécu en Russie pendant plusieurs années avant de
revenir en Arménie pour ce qui était censé être un court voyage cet
été. Elle ne sait toujours pas pourquoi elle a été placée sur la liste
noire de l’immigration russe. >.

Robert Aloyan, un autre natif d’Erevan, a affirmé qu’il a été empêché
de rendre visite à ses parents en Russie en raison qu’il n’aurait pas
informé les autorités de l’immigration russe que son fils est
titulaire d’un passeport russe. Il a dit qu’il envisage de déposer un
autre appel devant le FMS même si le précédent a déjà été rejeté par
l’agence.

Selon Gagik Yeganian, près de 2000 Arméniens ont déposé ces demandes
dans les quatre derniers mois. Seulement 300 d’entre eux ont été
retirés de la liste noire jusqu’à présent.

dimanche 19 octobre 2014,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

HRAPARAK: ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT TO CONVENE SPECIAL SESSION ON EEU TREATY

11:39 18/10/2014 >> DAILY PRESS

The Armenian National Assembly Speaker hosted a consultation meeting
on Friday to discuss the ratification of the treaty on Armenia’s
accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). The Prime Minister
participated in the meeting, Hraparak reports. According to preliminary
information, an agreement was reached to convene a special parliament
session on November 17. Prior to it, the document will be submitted
for the consideration of Armenia’s Constitutional Court. The treaty
is expected to be ratified by the end of this year.

Source: Panorama.am

FONDATEURS. L’ALLIANCE D’UN CHEVALIER, D’UN EVEQUE ET D’UNE LOI A CREE DES QUARTIERS ENTIERS A MARSEILLE.

REVUE DE PRESSE
La toile armenienne

Nous sommes en octobre 1927. Mgr Krikoris Balakian, representant
du catholicos armenien en Europe occidentale, pense s’installer
a Marseille. Lors de la messe qu’il celèbre a Paris, son sermon,
“d’une grande hauteur litteraire et patriotique”, impressionne un
homme parmi les fidèles : le chevalier Vahan Khorassandjian. Ce riche
industriel venu de Bruxelles offre a l’eveque une bague de grande
valeur ayant appartenu a sa femme, decedee. Les deux hommes discutent
et, peu a peu, le bijou se transforme en l’achat d’un terrain sur le
Prado a Marseille. Six mois plus tard, sur ces terres offertes par
Vahan Khorassandjian, la première pierre de la cathedrale armenienne
apostolique est posee. L’architecte choisi, Aram Tahtadjian, est
laureat de l’Exposition universelle.

Krikoris Balakian vient s’installer afin de creer le diocèse du Midi.

Chasses par le genocide de 1915, près de 60 000 Armeniens arrives
entre 1922 et 1924 sont alors entasses dans des camps montes a
la hâte a Sainte-Marthe, Saint-Antoine ou Saint-Loup. De petites
chapelles ont ete erigees a côte d’ecoles de fortune, mais cette
population travailleuse a besoin de s’implanter. C’est par les
eglises qu’elle y parviendra. A l’aide de souscriptions populaires,
la communaute acquiert quelques terrains. “Après le travail,explique
Robert Azilazian, president du conseil de la cathedrale, les hommes
construisaient les eglises sur les collines avec le ciment que
preparaient les femmes.” Organisations

Autour des edifices religieux, des maisons voient le jour. Avec
elles naissent des organisations a vocation humanitaire, educative,
culturelle, sportive et, surtout, patriotique. Elles prennent le
relais pour attirer les dons, aidees par les dispositions de la
nouvelle loi Loucheur, votee en 1927, qui favorise la construction.

Pour echapper aux charges nouvelles pesant sur le non-bâti, les grands
proprietaires marseillais usent des possibilites offertes par les lois
foncières et liquident une partie de leur patrimoine. Le morcellement
de ces territoires va donner naissance a des quartiers. À la Rosière,
la pinède Sieur-Demoussian est deboisee. Le quartier armenien de
Beaumont y pousse. A Saint-Jerôme, la famille Pomeon divise en
parcelles sa vaste propriete et un quartier se construit contre le
boulevard Ararat. A côte d’une eglise, toujours. Vahan Khorassandjian
a, lui, son buste de pierre noire dans les jardins de la cathedrale.

Les pinèdes du sieur Demoussian

Il ne fut pas le premier Armenien a s’installer a Marseille puisque,
dès le XVIe siècle, des negociants originaires de Smyrne et d’Alep y
echangeaient des tissus avant d’aller aux foires de Lyon. Louis XIII
a plus tard delivre une patente a un marchand, Antoine Armeny, qui,
en 1612, s’associe avec le plus important negociant marseillais. Mais
c’est a la fin du XVIIIe siècle qu’un Armenien va changer le visage
de la ville. Le sieur Demoussian, proprietaire d’une parfumerie sur
la Canebière, achète en 1791 une propriete de 13 hectares sur les
hauteurs de Marseille, a l’emplacement de l’actuelle avenue de la
Rosière, dans le quartier de Beaumont. Une presence qui, selon les
historiens, aurait favorise, dans les annees 30, l’installation des
Armeniens sur ces terres. Cree sur les pinèdes du parfumeur, Beaumont
est toujours le quartier où la communaute, estimee aujourd’hui a 80
000 personnes, est le plus representee a Marseille.

samedi 18 octobre 2014, Stephane (c)armenews.com

‘WATCHERS OF THE SKY’ A POWERFUL WARNING ABOUT GENOCIDE

Los Angeles Times, CA
Oct 17 2014

Review

The documentary “Watchers of the Sky” centers on Raphael Lemkin,
who coined the word “genocide” and devoted his life to ensuring that
the systematic extermination of people would be an international crime.

Henryk Sienkiewicz’s depiction of the Roman Empire’s slaughter of
early Christian converts in the novel “Quo Vadis,” as well as the 1915
Armenian massacre, provoked in the young Lemkin — a Polish Jew born
in 1900 — a profound revulsion. He studied law at Lviv University
in Ukraine, became a prosecutor and presented at the 1933 League of
Nations conference in Madrid. But his caution about history repeating
itself fell on deaf ears.

In 1941, Lemkin fled the Nazis for the United States. Here, he
tirelessly courted ambassadors to the United Nations and entreated them
to ratify the Genocide Convention he had drafted. Though adopted in
1951, its actual implementation came half a century later in a case
against Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir. Filmmaker Edet
Belzberg juxtaposes Lemkin’s biography with the Sudanese refugees
camped in eastern Chad and former International Criminal Court chief
prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo mounting the case against Bashir.

Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and
Pulitzer-winning author of “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age
of Genocide,” narrates Lemkin’s story beautifully. The film’s message
is so powerful, some of the poetic flourishes are unnecessary.

Animation sequences that earned recognition at Sundance have a
once-upon-a-time quality that seems allegorical, a disservice to a film
that reminds us that genocide is recurrent, not an isolated incident.

————

“Watchers of the Sky”

MPAA rating: None.

Running time: 2 hours, 1 minute.

Playing: Laemmle’s Royal, West Los Angeles; Laemmle’s Town Center
5, Encino.