‘WE GREAT CULTURAL POTENTIAL’
By Tamar Minasian

AZG Armenian Daily
24/05/2006

Azerbaijanis Upset by the Elder Brother

Armenia’s debut at the Eurovision song contest is still being lively
discussed by young people and musicians. It also turned into a target
of interesting comments on the part of Turkish and Azerbaijani media.

“The 10 points that Turkey gave to Armenian singer threw me into
a fit of laughter. The presenters who were distinctively favoring
Turkey were at a loss when our ‘brothers’, as they are called in
masses, gave Armenians 10 points. Turks merely confused us by this
decision especially in the view of recent opposition to ‘genocide’
allegations. The presenters did not even try to find a justification
for ‘our elder brother’s’ deed. They sadly kept silent,” this was the
“hopeless” conclusion of a day.az correspondent on May 22. “We were
silently listening to our tunes in Andre’s song, to the music of
our tar.” In another publication Azerbaijanis try to be more frank:
“The Armenians again presented themselves as a nation with high
culture. Many TV viewers in our country hoped deep in their hearts
that Armenia’s representative Andre will give a bad performance but
he performed greatly taking a very high place for a debutant and
leaving behind Turkey, France, the Great Britain and other states.”

The Armenian delegation returned to Yerevan in the morning of May
22 and was warmly welcomed at the airport. Contrary to his first
performance at the semi-final, Andre performed brilliantly in the
final.

“He was first to perform at the semi-final and was not accustomed
to the atmosphere. But his second performance was great,” TV viewer
Anahit Kamalian told daily Azg. “We were at a cafe watching the live
contest on the screen. You should only see how every customer cheered
when Andre was receiving the points.”

Singer Shushan Petrosian is glad and proud of Andre’s victory. “Andre’s
song was among the best in this mess of horrible music tastes. I had
never watched the Eurovision but this time there was Andre. It was a
heavy responsibility for Andre but he reached the goal with honor,”
she said. Mrs. Petrosian thinks that the Eurovision has to do not
with the culture but with the politics, and to prove the contrary
the organizers chose a relatively neutral country as winner.

For bard Vahan Artsruni also the Eurovision is a low-rated
contest as the performance is judged not by a jury but by the
spectators. Secondly, this was pop music contest where “the highest
standard is not the music but interesting presentation of a song. From
this angle, Andre’s performance was not much different from the
rest.” Artsruni is sure that participation in contests is the only
way to present your music to the world, “but there are more serious
contests and victories in classical music that are not covered as
the Eurovision.”

When months ago the song was introduced to the Armenian public opinions
ranged from super positive response to dissatisfaction with Turkish
tunes. In his assessment of Andre’s performance composer Vladilen
Balian notes that we have great musical potential “but the doors seem
to be slow to open to us.” Singer Ofelia Hambardzumian, on her part,
said the song was rather difficult to perform but Andre did very well.