Arakatz

The Music Masters of Armenia : Aradi Poghossian (tar), Varazdat Hovhanessian (duduk), Artur Grigorian (flute), Robert Durunts (percussion) + guest: the sublime vocalist Anna Mayilyian. The land where the East and the West have always been meeting since the Ancient Times, a land of tradition and culture, Armenia is also a land of music —music of great beauty, whose specific colour distinguishes it from that of its Persian, Turkish and Georgian neighbours. Troubadour songs, music for celebrations and rejoicing, old religious songs and epic, all bear the mark of the Armenian soul —with melancholy rising to the surface at every moment, even in the midst of joy. This refined, erudite art form, this age-old music permeated with folk tradition, is performed here by an ensemble worthy of its name: The Music Masters of Armenia. As for the CD title, while Mount Ararat, in present-day Turkey, is the mythical summit that can be seen on the horizon as in a dream, at a stone's throw from the border, Mount Arakatz (4090 m) is the name of the highest peak in the Armenian Republic.