April 16, 2013
Contact: Denice Karamardian, Exec Producer, Crossing Borders 275-0021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Crossing Borders LIVE Introduces Armenian Artist
Hasmik Harutyunyan on April 28th

Crossing Borders LIVE continues its spring 2013 Visiting Artist concert series with The Forgotten Armenians, featuring vocalist Hasmik Harutyunyan, at 4:30 pm on April 28th at The Carriage House Hayloft at 305 Stewart Avenue, Ithaca. Hasmik will begin the performance with a talk presentation of Armenian culture and history to commemorate the anniversary week of the 1915 genocide of over one million Armenians in the Middle East. Hasmik will be accompanied by duduk master Martin Haroutunian. Haroutunian uses the traditional folk instrument as a reflection of Armenia itself and its heritage.

Tickets for the event are $15 and are available at Angry Mom Records and the Carriage House Café.

Born in 1960 in Yerevan, Hasmik Harutyunyan became involved in music at a young age and went on to graduate from the Department of Vocal Music at the Arno Babajanian School of Music and the Yerevan State Pedagogical Institute. She has been a soloist for the Agoonk Ensemble of Armenian National Radio and is featured vocalist with the Shoghaken Armenian Folk Ensemble. Hasmik performs regularly in Armenia, Russia, Europe, and the United States, and she has recorded albums of traditional Armenian folk music with members of the Harutyunyan family, as ell as with the Shoghaken Ensemble. The musicians of Shoghaken also accompany Hasmik on her solo CD Armenian Lullabies in a collection of lullabies from the provinces of Historic Armenia.

Hasmik is known for her renditions of the Armenian lullaby, which are deeply touching and can be heard on Armenian National Radio and throughout Armenia. She views music as life itself—its happiness, sadness and struggle. She strives to keep traditional Armenian music alive and safe from foreign influence and consciously preserves the differences in regional dialect and style of the Armenian lullaby. She is inspired by her grandmother, who sang to her as a child, and her teacher, Hayrik Mouradian and is considered one of the most knowledgeable musicians of traditional folk song of all Armenian regions.

Hasmik has been awarded “Meritorious Artist of Armenia” in Yerevan and “Enchanting Voice of Armenia” in Moscow. Recently, Hasmik was part of a two-day workshop of Armenian folk song and dance for the Emanat Institute in Slovenia, and delivered a lecture titled “The Armenian Lullaby and Folk Traditions” as part of the Holocaust and Genocide Lecture Series at Sonoma State University. She is known for these talks, in addition to her music, that touch on events relating to Armenia and its history, and arrives in Ithaca after delivering the lecture presentation at UC Berkeley.

The Shoghaken Folk Ensemble rose to fame when Yo Yo Ma zeroed in on the Armenian duduk for his Silk Road Project, leading them to their first US appearance in 2002 at the Silk Road Festival in Washington, D.C. They returned in 2004 for a 25 City US Tour, releasing a box set of CDs on the Traditional Crossroads label and performing to sold out audiences at Los Angeles, Seattle, Kennedy Center, Philadelphia, New York’s World Music Institute at Symphony Space, UC Berkeley, Dartmouth and Cornell, as well as their first appearance on Crossing Borders LIVE. They returned to Crossing Borders LIVE in 2008 for a series of outreach events and concert.

“Hasmik Harutyunyan can rival any of the musical divas of the Balkans and Eastern Europe . . . she expresses grace, beauty, unique stylizations and a poetic lyricism with her voice.” — Erika Borsos, Amazon.com review

“Forget the don’t-you-cry stuff. [Armenian Lullabies] may be one of the very few albums to contain a lullaby based on an incident of genocide, and it’s a surpassingly beautiful tune, with a serenity that stems as much from heart-sore resignation as from a desire to get that wee one to sleep. Armenian women in the villages where most of these tunes were gathered had hard lives and little freedom, a condition that makes many of these folk lullabies sound like the night’s bitter farewell to the privations of the day. Harutyunyan’s voice has an earthy purity that’s just right for this music, which often unfolds against little more than a wheezing flute introduction and a hushed drone.” — R. E.G., The Globe and Mail

Armenia was once located at what is now Eastern Turkey, spreading south and east from there. It currently is a small independent country, once a Soviet Republic, landlocked between Georgia and Azerbaijan. Under the reign of the Ottoman Empire, over one million Armenians were exterminated and many were deported, beginning April 24, 1915. The event in Ithaca on April 28th commemorates the anniversary week of the Armenian Genocide.

Launched in 2004, Crossing Borders LIVE brings people and cultures together through its live concert series and weekly two-hour radio broadcast as well as special outreach events. The 9th Annual Crossing Borders LIVE Youth Series completes the season on June 16th. For more information about Crossing Borders LIVE, visit www.crossingborderslive.org. Please visit and Like us on Facebook, at CrossingBordersLIVE.