Annual Report from Armenia

 The report for Symposium of Honour Committee.

Dear Colleagues

I am, Isabella Arazova,  from Armenia and I am delighted to be here today. First of all I would like to thank the President of the Foundation "Women in Music"  Patricia  Adkins Chiti for the invitation to take part in Grand Jubilee  Celebrations  within the framework of the Festival of church music, at the meeting of  the Honour Commettee of the Foundation, as well as world-wide Symposium. I am deeply grateful for the trust and confidence given to me to represent my own country Armenia, a small country, not easily found on the globe's map.

Armenia is a unique country, different from all others, that has managed to combine the development of the musical, and not only the musical, culture with its old traditions. The Armenian nation has got  accustomed to survive and overcome hardship and the music was and is very instrumental in it. After a devastating Spitak earthquake of 1988, afterwards not less teribble energy crisis and during the most severe economic up- heavalsand finalcial turmoil my country sank into the darkness and cold. People lost everything they had during a very short period of time. But despite this, in most severe winter days the concert halls in Yere van were overcrowded, including the only heated hall of the National Philharmonic Orchestra. The creative life in the capital did not die down for a single minute. It is surprising, but the majority of works by women compo- sers were created at that very time.

Today I will be speaking about contemporary women composers wich are also musicologists, theorists and performers, who personify the musical culture of Armenia. The Union of Armenian Composers have five women members:

1. Geghuni Chitchyan is one of the most famous women composers of Armenia. She is composer, pianist and teacher.  She is the author of vocal, instrumental, chamber, chorus music and also has the works for

symphony orchestra. She won three local prizes.

2. Gyane Chebotaryan was an expert in poliphonic styles. Unfortunately, she is not a live.

3. Vard Manukyan is  composer and teacher. She has several collections of vocal-simphonic, chamber and chorus music and she won some local prizes.

4. Armenuhi Karapetyan is composer, pianist and flutist and she also participated local competitions as pianist and flutist. She has vocal and instrumental music and also has works for chorus.

5. Isabella Arazova is composer, pianist and teacher. She is the author of several collections of vocal,

instrumental, chamber , vocal -symphonic music and also has the works for symphony orchestra.

6. Narine Zarifyan is composer. She has several collections of jazz style.Armenia has 1 conservatory, 4 musical colleges, one musical school for gifted children, three art schools and a relatively well developed net- work of musical schools. All these establishments are financed by the government, but there are also private musical schools.

The old Soviet-era system was not open to the rest of the culture world. It used to strictly restrict interna- tional cultural contacts and was toughly supervising and controling them. Evidently, such a system could not exist long. The multi-facet crisis that followed, however, opened a wide diversity of technical possibilities for expanding developing  new culturalcontacts and relations. Along with this, the absence of real musical infrastucture and the lack of financial funding remain as major hindrance. As a result, the entire culture and women composers, in particular, have been left without any support.

We are well aware that the most important and paramount task for us today is integration into the world cultural process. We would like to take advantage of these unique opportunities to establish new and creative contacts with our collegues all around the world. This process is viewed by us as a two-way process, involving expansion of all the world  music performance in Armenia and presentation of Armenian

music throughout the world.

I would like to express my profound gratefulness to two wonderful women, the President of the Foundation "Women in Music", Patricia Adkins Chiti and Alicia Terzian, one of the famous women composers and pub- lic figure, which do not spare their efforts to help us to create the Armenian Association of Women in Music.

We are preparing to have the most active participation on the work of the World Association of Women Composers. I would like to congratulate all of us on this significant event. I am very pleased and happy to meet you here, to communicate with all of you and try to find solutions to the problems generated in my

country over these years. One of the major factors hindering our activity is the absence of Copyright Law.

Our works are neither published, nor bought and performed.

Thank you for your attention.

                        Isabella Arazova.

          18.09.2000.