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The Chamber Orchestra is a new face of statehood

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The conductor says there is a mission to the music

Until 2004, Karabakh had never had its own chamber orchestra.But two years ago, the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) initiated the orchestra’s creation and assigned its leadership to artistic director and conductor Gevorg Muradyan.

“I dreamt of creating a chamber orchestra in Artsakh (the ancient name for Karabakh) in the 1990s,” says Muradyan, who has been a musician for 36 years. “But those were years of war and there were more important things to care for. But my dream came true 15 years later, thanks to AGBU.

“People would say ‘Muradyan jan, where are you moving to?! There is no audience there!’ as I made up my mind to move to Artsakh. I took no notice of those words, because I believed in our cause.”

Muradyan, once the conductor of the Yerevan Symphonic Orchestra and later the director and the conductor of the Philharmonic Choir, was joined by 12 musicians from Armenia and 11 locals to form the orchestra. AGBU covers costs for the Armenian musicians to live in Stepanakert and pays salaries of the orchestra.

“Playing in this orchestra means for me both professional advantages and fulfilling a mission in certain sense,” says cellist Harutyun Gevorgyan, who has moved to Karabakh from Armenia. “The world learns of people by their culture. We try to introduce this country by what we do. And I am confident we do manage to do it.”

The orchestra first appeared before the public at the 83rd AGBU convention/congress on October 8, 2004.

“I was so proud when I first stepped on the stage and very excited by the feeling at the same time. I have led a number of orchestras in Europe, but I must say unambiguously I feel more responsible when I step on the stage in Artsakh,” says Muradyan, who was called “a separatist and an occupier conductor” in the Azerbaijani press after the concerts.

The conductor underlines his Western Armenian descent, with his family having suffered from the Turkish yataghan (sword). But he says his weapon is music, not arms.

The orchestra has monthly hour and a half long concerts in Stepanakert and has also performed in Shushi, Martakert and Kashatagh. It also plans concerts in Hadrut and Martuni. It has performed 28 times so far, playing pieces by both Armenian and foreign composers.

“The audience in Artsakh is knowledgeable and appreciative. You can’t cheat it or serve low quality music. This makes our work even more serious and imposes high responsibility,” says the director and the pianist of the orchestra Simon Sargsyan, a citizen of Karabakh, who recalls the difficulties with starting up the orchestra.

“In the course of time both the orchestra and the manner of performance have developed. Our announcements were handwritten at the beginning, because there were no booklets. And now we try to have them designed in a modern and beautiful way,” says Sargsyan.

The 500-seat performance hall is nearly always filled by ticket holders who pay 300 drams (about 80 cents).

The creation of the orchestra has led to the opening of a strings department at the music college in Stepanakert.

“Parents in Artsakh are quite excited as their children will have the chance to go for music and the strings music in particular. This gives us hope we will rear a generation to take up our enterprise and Artsakh will finally have an orchestra comprised of local musicians,” says Muradyan.