Trans-Caucasus chamber orchestra to aim at better regional relations

Trans-Caucasus chamber orchestra to aim at better regional relations

.c The Associated Press

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) – A German conductor has announced plans to form
a chamber orchestra consisting of musicians from Georgia, Armenia and
Azerbaijan as an initiative to promote better relations in the
fractious Caucasus region.

“We hope that this unique collective will become a symbol of
stabilization in the Caucasus,” Uwe Berkhemer said Monday. “Music
will be an ambassador of peace and mutual understanding.”

The Caucasus region is fraught with tension between Armenia and
Azerbaijan centering on the unresolved conflict over the
Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, and Georgia is troubled by two separatist
regions that seek either independence or union with Russia.

Berkhemer said the orchestra’s first planned performance will be in
August in Batumi, the capital of the Adzharia region which had balked
at Georgian central government control until its strongman leader
Aslan Abashidze fled amid mass protests last year.

01/11/05 11:51 EST