‘BESAME MUCHO’ AND ‘CRANES’ IN ONE CD
By Susanna Margarian

AZG Armenian Daily
06/09/2006

Singer Sarine Balian is first time in Armenia. Urged by Narek
Harutyunian, founder of Narekatsi Art Center, she arrived in to
see her fatherland about which she only heard. "I have been here
for a week and I learn new things and meet new faces every day. I
have never been to a place where everything is written in Armenian,
everyone speaks Armenian and all these is very exciting. Diasporans
Armenians here do and feel the same things and we have the same nature
and character but we seldom talk of that," she says.

Sarine did not come empty-handed; she brought her first album titled
"Juxtaposed" that saw the light lately. Her live performance will
take place at Narekatsi Center on September 12.

Born in Lebanon, she lived in America and performs jazz. She was
captured by the freedom of jazz music when still a student at San
Francisco University.

"Jazz for me was a door of revelations that grants possibility of
advancement and reincarnation. For instance, jazz versions of Armenian
songs are very close to my heart," Sarine says.

She also teaches and thinks that contact with her students helps to
even more crystallize her art.

"Children prefer joyous and rhythmic songs. Regardless a song’s or
a dance’s ethnic background people prefer the one that creates good
mood," she says.

With regard to "Juxtaposed", it must be noted that it’s a wonderful
collection of diverse ethnic songs by which Sarine once again confirms
that love, human sadness and emotions are the same for all people
despite ethnic, linguistic and cultural differences.