A press conference took place on September 3rd, 2021 in the yard of the Alexander Spendiaryan House-museum. The theme of the conference was the festival of chamber music entitled “Spendiaryan-150” which will take place on September 4-5, 2021 in Gyumri. The press conference speakers were the director of the Spendiaryan House-museum, Marine Otaryan (Honored figure of culture of the RA); pianist Hayk Melikyan (Honored artist of the RA); and opera singer Barsegh Tumanyan (People’s artist of the RA). Marine Otaryan welcomed the participants of the festival and emphasized one of the purposes of the musical event - to contribute Armenian musicians to involve the symphonic and chamber compositions of Spendiaryan in their repertoire. “Spendiaryan’s best chamber works are included in the concert program, and attendees will have an opportunity to move to the Spendiaryanian world”, said Mrs. Otaryan. She mentioned the importance of the dialogue between the generations of the musicians of the different ages. She added, that premiere of the two compositions are planned for the music festival: the “Fortune teller” for piano 4 hands by Spendiaryan and “The dance of Almast” from the opera “Almast” arranged for piano by Hayk Melikyan.

The pianist Hayk Melikyan mentioned, that he had never performed the music of Spendiaryan before and he is thankful to Marine Otaryan for the invitation to take part in the festival. “The piano works of the composer became real discovery for me”, he emphasized.

Opera artist Barsegh Tumanyan talked about the original compositional style of Spendiaryan and the necessity of its discovery for the musicians and attendees as well. He mentioned that the 150th birth anniversary of the composer and the festival are new occasions for glorifying of the composer’s music.

In the end of the press conference the organizers of the festival invited the culture-lovers to Gyumri.