I very much want to be useful to Armenians, says Russian-Armenian singer

Excerpt from interview by David P. Vardazaryan

In an exclusive interview with Tert.am, Russian-Armenian pop-singer Mariam Merabova spoke of her participation in the music project The Voice of Russia, the Armenian jazz and her concert in the Nagorn-Karabakh (Artsakh) Republic.

"What happened after the blind auditions for The Voice of Russia is impossible to describe. My Facebook page simply 'exploded'; 3,000 messages at once … I wasn’t able to reply to anyone. It was terrible. So many Armenians, all expressing their wishes from everywhere: [United States of] America, Portugal, Germany. The Armenian diaspora were writing to me from all the corners of the world,” she said.

Merabova said that the song Georgia on My Mind became her specific visiting card as a kind of unique musical performance.

Asked what else she can consider her style outside the contest, the singer replied, “Rhythm and blues, jazz, Etta James, Sara Wan … That’s what is mine.”

As for the Armenian jazz, Merabova said she especially loves and perceives as typical Armenian jazz music the works by Constantine Orbelyan and Arno Babajanyan. “Babajanyan, by the way, is jazz for me too, as [his pieces] are non-standard; they are not just ‘Soviet variety music’. There is such a harmony in what they have created. But I do not distinguish between Armenian and non-Armenian jazz. And I do not absolutely suffer from such ‘craziness’. I am for good judgment.  So music is what I adore.”


Asked what Armenian song is included on her upcoming concert program and whether she intends to perform anything by Komitas, the singer said the repertoire includes only one song by composer Arthur Grigoryan. “It will be an amazing song with its beauty. It isn’t just a song. It’s something very important for me. It has already ‘pierced’ through my heart once, and that’s all. I don’t think there is anything beyond it …,” he added.

The singer further spoke of her ancestors who survived and fell victim to Genocide.  “We were a big family. My grandmother’s mother had 12 children. They were a wealthy family and had houses in Erzurum, Odessa, Batumi and so on. Their job was carpet-making. My grandfather’s father was a Maecenas. But in [19]15, a sister of my grand-grandfather, aunt Sonya who studied at the Academy of Fine Art in Munich, was killed in Erzurum. She was then on a vacation in Erzurum where the family were having a rest. They killed her and the others…

“By the way, I have a great number of our photos with all our houses.

“My children are aware of all that. They know everybody by name.

“My grandfather’s paternal uncle, Soghomon, was killed too, during the Genocide, together with two children aged three. It was an awful tragedy for the family. Then uncle Vanya left for Hamburg; the rest who remained alive – Minas, my grandpa’s father, and Mariam, my grandma’s mother – stayed in Tbilisi. But their children were scattered here and there, one went to Hamburg, the other - to Petersburg; uncle George went to Moscow. But [19]15 was not the end of all that, as 1922 followed.”

One of the most influential Diaspora-Armenians on different ranking indexes, Merabova says she very much desires to be very useful to the Armenian nation. “I bow to everything Ruben Vardanyan does … I think [people like him] are the nation’s glory. They see life the way it will look in 100 years. One’s vision cannot be limited to three or five years. You have to look 100 years ahead to see what your nation will have. That’s the important thing,” she added.

Asked whether she isn’t afraid of being blacklisted by Azerbaijan for her concert in Karabakh, Merabova said she doesn’t feel any discomfort at all. She said other organizers had been planning her concert in the country several years ago but didn’t succeed to. 

The singer said she doesn’t care at all that after the concert in Karabakh she will be back to a multi-cultural city like Moscow. “So what does that change at all? Won’t anyone listen to me in Moscow after that?” she aksed.