News
ST. ILLUMINATOR’S HOSTS EMOTIONAL TRIBUTE TO CHARLES AZNAVOUR BY BERGE TURABIAN AND ALVARD MAYILYAN
On Friday evening, January 30, St. Illuminator’s hosted a special tribute concert entitled Aznavour@100: Le Reprise, presented by Berge Turabian, joined by Alvard Mayilyan, celebrating the life and music of Charles Aznavour on the 100th anniversary of his birth. It was their second tribute to Aznavour presented at the Cathedral, following the success of their first concert in November 2024, in which they performed Aznavour’s songs in Armenian translation. This time, the artists performed primarily in French and English.
The concert, which was introduced by Archpriest Fr. Mesrob Lakissian, Pastor, and Armen Morian, chairman of the Board of Trustees, attracted a capacity crowd that filled the Cathedral’s Pashalian Hall, braving the City’s deep freeze to attend.
Before performing, Turabian thanked Fr. Mesrob and the Cathedral’s Board of Trustees for their unwavering support of his Aznavour project and for providing a hospitable home for celebrating Aznavour’s talent.
Both ardent fans of Aznavour since their early teens, Berge Turabian and Alvard Mayilyan delivered solo and duet performances with an intimate fluency and emotive power that only a total immersion in Aznavour’s canon could make possible.
During the intermission, His Eminence Archbishop Anoushavan, Prelate, conducted a Kinetson ceremony for Berge’s newly published CD, entitled Charles Aznavour 100, the third in his Aznavour in Armenian series, which included recordings of 25 songs.
In his remarks, Archbishop Anoushavan extolled Turabian’s and Mayilyan’s talent and stressed the virtue of upholding Armenian culture as a bulwark against the erosion of our identity, in a time when even the most fundamental values and traditions of the Armenian nation appear subject to negotiation, reappraisal, and compromise. He quoted Aznavour’s statement to a French journalist who once asked Aznavour what percentage of him was Armenian and what percentage French. Aznavour answered. “I am 100 percent Armenian and 100 percent French.” The Prelate offered Aznavour’s example as a virtuous model for all Diasporan Armenians to emulate: to live lives that are in equal parts fully Armenian and fully of the nations they call home.
