ART-EXPO exhibition may open abroad in several years

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan also attended the exhibition.

Hasmik Poghosyan, RA Minister of Culture stated, “This exhibition will promote the cooperation between the state and private cultural organizations of Armenia and show which art products can be exported. Quality of our products is still not high enough, and we have а visualization problem of what we produce. ART-EXPO aims to address this issue, as all we produce is meant to be consumed by broad masses of people.”

She also mentioned that the number of participants has almost doubled. “We also noticed that some participants had disagreements because of the location of their pavilions, which means that they are interested in successful participation on the exhibition,” the Minister said.

Master class by Saida Medvedeva, director of “Mould”, “Water” and other movies, will be organized on the second day of the two-day exhibition.

*

On February 15-26, Mkitar Sebastatsi Educational Complex will host “Tumanyan” contest, with films, puppet shows and radio plays presented in contest frameworks. The contest will feature 9 nominations, with a winner of each to be named after Tumanyan fairytale characters.

*

Rock Star newspaper will be published in Armenia.

“The idea to create such a newspaper belongs to me and my team of journalists and photographers, Termine Nersisyan, Ani Hovhannesyan and Mkrtich Nazaryan,” producer Arvin Kocharian told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

Each edition will be dedicated to an Armenian rock band. Besides, it will have a retro-page and a page featuring foreign rock stars. It will cover rock events, presentations of new CD/DVDs and publish experts’ opinions.

“The newspaper will have a small number of readers, who will never change their taste in music,” Kocharian said.

The presentation of the newspaper will take place on February 26.

*

After a visit to Moscow, Gevorg Gevorgyan, Director of the RA National Cinema Center, said that the shooting of the first Armenian-Russian movie will begin in two months.

Russian Film Commission will make the final conclusion on Marina Sahakyan’s script and allocate essential funds. Alaverdi will be co-financed in compliance with the agreement concluded by Prime Ministers of CIS member countries in 2008.

The RA National Cinema Center will provide Marina Sahakyan with 65 thousand euro. Russia will donate 195 thousand euro. Paradise Moscow-based company will invest 150 thousand euro, French partners will contribute 240 thousand euro.

Mr. Gevorgyan also informed that three joint films will be produced in 2011.

*

Armenia's Ministry of Culture and Iran's Culture and Islamic Relations Organization signed Wednesday, February 10 a cultural cooperation program for 2010-2012.

“We have discussed details of the agreement with the Iranian delegation led by Adviser to the President of Iran, Head of Iran's Culture and Islamic Relations Organization Mehdi Mostafavi. Since 1994, when the governments of Armenia and Iran signed an agreement on cooperation in culture, science, education, sports, tourism and media, a lot of work has been done, and we are not going to stop," RA Minister of Culture Hasmik Poghosyan said.

Mr. Mostafavi said for his part, “Armenia and Iran have developed friendly and close relations and the two nations have long become а family, thanks to cultural community.

*

On March 16, 2009, Serj Tankian and New Zealand’s 70-piece Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra took the stage at the Auckland Town Hall in New Zealand and delivered an exhilarating and unique performance of Tankian’s latest solo album, Elect the Dead. Six cameras were set up to capture the performance in HD, and the resulting product is the impressive Elect the Dead Symphony CD/DVD set, due to be released on March 9, 2010. Tankian, Reprise Records, and Cinema Purgatorio have been working together towards worldwide movie screenings of Elect the Dead Symphony starting in February. Many of the show locations are being requested by fans and are being organized together with the Armenian American community, including the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

Aside from the orchestral performance of the tracks on the album, the Elect the Dead Symphony includes two bonus, never-before-heard songs, Gate 21 and The Charade, interviews with Tankian and members of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, as well as backstage footage.

It has been also reported that Tankian’s next album project, Music Without Borders, will most likely be released this summer. It’s a new genre of music in some ways, Tankian told Billboard.com. “It’s electro orchestra jazz-rock. It’s basically a full orchestra, full, heavy electronic beats, live instrumentation and resampling… You name it, it’s there. It’s a huge wall of sound.” Meanwhile, Tankian has been collaborating with writer and lyricist Steven Sater and Harvard University’s American Repertory Theatre’s Diane Paulus, toward a musical adaptation of Aescchylus’ tragedy, Prometheus Bound.

* On February 9 the National Library of Armenia hosted the presentation of the "Remember me kindly in your hearts" book-calendar, dedicated to 125th anniversary of the great Armenian poet Vahan Terian.

The book calendar features works by Vahan Terian, as well as the opinions of famous people about the poet's creative work.

The calendar includes works of Armenian artists Vardges Sureniants, Martiros Saryan, Pharaon Mirzoyan, documents from the archives of the house-museum of the great Armenian poet Tumanyan, as well as the works of photographers Samvel Karapetyan and Samvel Sevada. According to the Department of Public Affairs of the National Library of Armenia, the initiative belongs to the Levon Mirijanyan Fund, and financial support was provided by the head of the Armavir regional administration Ashot Ghahramanyan. Editor of "Remember me kindly in your hearts" book calendar is the late Aydin Morikyan.

*

“Ascension. Young Armenian Talents” festival will take place in Meridian concert hall on April 3. Participants will compete for 5 nominations: best performance of Armenian folk song, best performance of Armenian pop song, best performance of foreign song, best jazz performance, best dance staging.

The winners will be selected by a professional jury.