World-famous Gyumri pianist Tigran Hamasyan’s charity solo concert took place at State Drama Theatre of Gyumri after Vardan Achemyan: the whole outcome will be transferred to the foundation of the theatre’s support for acquiring apartments for homeless actors. As informed by the director of Gyumri Theatre, Tigran Virabyan, Tigran Hamasyan, hearing about the formation of the foundation, was one of the first people to responded immediately – agreeing on performing in a charity concert. Tigran Virabyan also noted that the concert tickets had sold out 15 days before the concert, the 50% of the audience came from different cities and towns of Armenia and abroad. “If you want to understand how big the interest towards this concert is, we should try to find vacant rooms at Gyumri hotels today. Let us call to any hotel and ask – do you have a spare room? Naturally you’ll be given a negative answer, inasmuch as more than 50% of the audience is not from Gyumri, they live in various cities and towns – Vanadzor, Yerevan, we have guests from Georgia, there are people who have booked tickets from Iran. In short, this concert is not only to the benefit of Drama Theatre of Gyumri, but also does its job in part of tourism and we are not able to reserve a room for our own guests at Gyumri hotels”, explained Tigran Virabyan.
The price of the tickets started from 3000 reaching 7000 AMD, the very half of the tickets sold out in Gyumri, the other half – in different cities of the Republic and abroad. According to Tigran Virabyan, the expensive tickets sold out the first. “I should make a comparison, when 10 years ago Tigran Hamasyan’s solo concert was to take place in Gyumri, we could sell the tickets to the concert with a great difficulty, and now, 10 years later, we meet the same composer in Gyumri and see that people simply cannot find tickets. This speaks of the shift in generation, this speaks of the change of the demand of the audience, this comes to speak of the fact that quality events, high-class concerts have come to take the place, excuse me to say this, the garbage had been taking”, explained Tigran Virabyan.
As witnessed by Mr. Virabyan, they had rented a quality and expensive piano for the concert not to be less than any concert of the capital.
The concert hall was crowded, before entering the building of the Theatre, the guests, who had come to Gyumri, were taking photographs in front of the building of the Theatre, on the background of Avetik Isahakyan’s statue.
Raffi Hovhannisian had come to enjoy Tigran Hamasyan’s concert together with his wife – Mrs. Armine, son – Karin, and painter Arthur Sargsyan. “I have come to my dear Gyumri to enjoy Tigran, who is a national value, represents Gyumri and Armenia on stages abroad and takes his home – Gyumri, under international spotlight. Tigran stands out with not only always remembering his roots, but also understanding that Gyumri is a living, breathing city. Shirak is a region having a need for modernization, and he always stands beside his city, his region and our Republic. And even being a star on international stages, his roots stand deep inside him and his decency and modesty make him more admirable”, told Raffi Hovhannisian. He informed he had listened to Tigran Hamasyan in international halls, in the capital, but had never met him in Gyumri. How much the audience was adoring Tigran Hamasyan, is not possible to transmit in words: lasting applauds succeeded each performance, exclamations: “Bravo! Bravo!”, and standing up.
Tigran Hamasyan performed also new compositions in Gyumri. The new CD, entitled “For Gyumri”, will come to life in February. Tigran Hamasyan performed 2 compositions from that CD, one was called “Aragats”, the other – “Self-portrait”. When Tigran Hamasyan was finishing the concert with the composition entitled “Lennakan”, the audience stood up at once and demanded another performance through long-lasting applauds after which alone they agreed to let him leave the stage.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
