Erevan Choral Society’s Concert Ushers in Holiday Season

By Robert Dulgarian

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—The beautiful sanctuary of the Holy Trinity Armenian Church in Cambridge was the setting for the Erevan Choral Society’s Christmas Holiday Concert on Sun., Dec. 9. A capacity crowd attended this yearly and much-anticipated event that ushers in the holiday season.

As in most years, “Auld Lang Syne” was among the choral offerings of the Erevan Choral Society and Orchestra, but while the Scots-English phrase invokes a distinctly distant past, this year’s concert marked a number of more recent anniversaries, not least among them a dual 20^th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Karabagh and of the admission of the Republic of Armenia to the United Nations. In honor of the latter anniversary, special guest Garen Nazarian, the ambassador of the Republic of Armenia to the UN, spoke movingly (in both Armenian and English) of the special role of culture in the history of the Armenian nation, and of Armenia’s distinguished place in the family of nations. Joining Nazarian was Archbishop Yeghishe Gizirian, former Primate of the See of Great Britain and a former pastor of Holy Trinity, as well as Holy Trinity’s present pastor, Fr. Vasken A. Kouzouian, who opened and closed the proceedings with his characteristic eloquence and warmth.

But concerts, of course, are about music; and this year’s concert offered an unusually ambitious and varied program. Armen Mandakounian’s choral piece “Karabagh” commemorated the eponymous country’s 20^th anniversary, while a reprise of last year’s performance of Maestro Konstantin Petrossian’s “Hayastan” by world-renowned operatic tenor Yeghishe Manucharyan elicited thunderous applause from the audience. Manucharyan also offered a powerful and liquid rendition of César Franck’s “Panis Angelicus.” Maestro Petrossian, the current music director and conductor of the Erevan Choral Society, also offered the audience the world premiere of his “Vocalise,” composed in honor of the memory of his beloved predecessor, the Very Rev. Fr. Oshagan Minassian and of Fr. Oshagan’s devoted mother, Diramayr Sirvart Minassian. Soloist in the “Vocalise” was the always-compelling operatic mezzo-soprano Victoria Avetisyan, who also reprised a setting of Giulio Caccini’s “Ave Maria” with lyricism and power. A third returning soloist, soprano Nune Karapetian, soared above the chorus and orchestra in the descant of the traditional carol “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” as well as offering an assured and musical performance of the “Alleluia” from Mozart’s “Exultate, Jubilate.”

Yet the Armenian people also sustained losses in 2012, and it was surely a fitting choice to commemorate the passing in October of the recently deceased Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Archbishop Torkom Manoogian, with a setting of the hymn “Kta Der” by the late Alexander Haroutounian, who died in March. Gizirian’s powerful recitation of the traditional requiem prayer after the hymn introduced a note of solemnity that not only underpinned the sharagan settings and songs from the Armenian tradition that immediately followed, but also to an extent infused the traditional Western seasonal music that closed the program, reminding performers and the audience alike of the ties of culture and spirituality that bind the Armenian community, past and present, together.

The continued unflagging support of Fr. Vasken and the Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church for the Erevan Choral Society and Orchestra represents a shining example of such a commitment; the dedication of the performers and organizers, another. But perhaps most importantly, it is surely the hope of everyone involved with Erevan Choral that, in line with the aspirations of Fr. Oshagan, such concerts, and such commitments, will encourage all of us in the renewal of our mutual cultural and spiritual ties, that they may never pass away into the domain of “Auld Lang Syne.”