Ten Armenian musicians take on virtual stage for fundraiser
The Armenian American population is a beating heart of Los Angeles, tucked away into the vibrant and comforting charm of Glendale. However, the community is hurting as Turkey’s invasion of Armenia feels all too familiar to the attempt at the eradication of the Armenian people more than 100 years ago.
Eliza Petrosyan, an Armenian-born, Glendale-raised junior majoring in popular music, put together a musical fundraiser this past Friday featuring 10 Armenian musicians to raise money for the Armenia Fund.
The Armenia Fund is an organization facilitating “humanitarian and infrastructure development” t in Armenia in hopes of rebuilding the schools, hospitals and homes that were bombed and destroyed recently.
“I came [to L.A.] when I was about three with my family, and I’ve lived in Glendale most of my life, which has a huge Armenian population,” Petrosyan said. “I grew up around a lot of Armenians and the culture is very close to me.”
In 1915, the Ottoman government of present-day Turkey executed several hundred Armenian intellectuals. Civilians were displaced from their homes and sent on death marches in the Mesopotamian desert without food or water. This marked the start of the planned, systematic genocide of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians. Turkey has yet to officially recognize what happened as a genocide and has rejected any and all claims that the killings were an attempt to destroy the Armenian people.
Now, more than a century later, similar aggression is taking place against Armenia and the area of Artsakh (internationally known as Nagorno Karabakh) — a small piece of land sitting between Armenia and Azerbaijan whose ownership has been long disputed over.
At the start of the conflict and fighting, Petrosyan said she felt hopeless but eventually got the idea to do a virtual concert fundraiser to aid those being displaced and wounded in Armenia.
In eight or nine days, Petrosyan was able to connect with the Armenia Fund to streamline donations. She made a list of more than 30 Armenian musicians to reach out to via email and Instagram for performances, wrote a program and got all the Zoom information set up.
There haven’t been many concerts amid the coronavirus pandemic and through music’s ability to allow emotions to surface and bring people together, Petrosyan hoped that she’d be able to raise “maybe $1,000.”
They raised almost $10,000 from nearly 200 donors.
Silva Sevlian, the associate director at USC’s Institute of Armenian Studies, hosted the event.
“I was very honored to be asked to emcee this event,” Sevlian said. “I was so inspired that [the concert] was student-led, that it included so many voices from the diaspora, so many different songs and that the artists were able to share their music from Germany to New York.”
The fundraiser was a collage of Armenian artists coming together and sharing their art to advocate and help protect their people.
Sitting in front of a traditional knotted Armenian rug hung on her back wall, musician Krista Marina started off the intimate concert with just her acoustic guitar and mic in hand, singing the melodic trills of the hauntingly beautiful “Sareri Hovin Mernem” by Lena Chamamyan.
Next came Miqayel Voskanyan, an Armenian musician, composer, songwriter and producer who played his tar — an Armenian instrument — paired with effects from his pedalboard, pushing the boundaries of traditional Armenian music.
Osheen Manukyan, a third-year cello performance major at The Juilliard School, also performed at the fundraiser with two movements he had prepared from Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Cello Suite No. 2.”
“[The piece] is some of Bach’s most personal and inward-looking music, especially the sarabande of the suite,” Manukyan said. “It’s really one of the darkest moments in all of the cello suites and honestly, it reflects how I feel right now about the awful conflict.”
The fundraiser also featured performances by musicians Gregory Hosharian, Sirapi and Anahit Muradian, Vahagni, Arsen Jamkotchian, the Element Band and Narek Gharakhanian.
Petrosyan and a band of fellow music students played two traditional folk songs, the second being about missing one’s homeland and wishing to return soon.
“With everything that’s happening in Armenia, I was feeling pretty alone,” Petrosyan said. “Having that one day where [all the performers] were on a call together listening to music, and everyone was so willing to help, and there were so many people that showed up — it meant a lot.”
It seems like Armenian American author William Saroyan put it best: “Go ahead, destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.”
Petrosyan, among countless other Armenian American activists and organizations, are doing just that.
To learn more about the events going on against the Armenian people and how to help, visit these sites:
Op-Ed: Why Armenians everywhere stand with those in Nagorno-Karabakh
List of Businesses Donating to Artsakh
Prewritten Letters to Send to Representatives
To donate to Armenian humanitarian relief, go to the following organizations: