As a real fan of classical music and music in general, I attend concerts almost every week. Due to the Thanksgiving break I had a chance to attend 2 classical concerts in one week. The concerts were great and worth attending. I did enjoy my classical break.
BUT, what really bothers me while attending these kind of events is the fact that classical art is really underestimated in Armenia. First and foremost, the number of people who attend classical concerts is extremely small. One can argue that this is the case with classical concerts all over the world since the tickets of classical concerts as compared with other concerts are more expensive.
However, the concert halls are left half-filled when the prices for the tickets range from 1000 AMD to 5000 AMD. I don’t think that you can find a single country on the world map that offers a classical concert for such an accessible price.
The fact that the ticket prices are very low also indicates that the wages of the artists, who are being paid for the concerts, are not high at all. As a result, less people would choose to become professionals particularly in the genre of classical music. This is a disaster for any country. When we observe the cultures of the leading countries of the world we are to notice that classical art is highly appreciated and promoted.
Thus, we have a genuine cultural problem. The city does not want to rest its ears!
COMM130A 
Anna, then what do you think of starting an AUA student club next year that will be in charge of creatively vivifying classical music and other “on the verge of extinction” art forms in our community?
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That’s a great idea. I guess starting a student club will contribute to the revival of the classical art in Armenia. But, what bothers me is that there is no policy implemented by the official bodies such as Ministry of Culture or Composers Union of Armenia. I have concerns about the Armenian culture in general. The rapid decay is seen almost in every aspect of art. I think that creating these kind of student clubs not only in AUA but also in all Armenian universities will contribute to the solution of the problem.
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What kind of policies do you have in mind?
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As I mentioned I would like the official bodies to promote the classical art. I guess, a possible solution would be including arts as a subject in the schools. Starting from the early age children should get acquainted with art and learn to appreciate it. Another solution would be the promotion of arts in media, especially on TV. Programs fostering arts should be created. These kinds of polices should aim to make arts an inseparable part of daily life of all Armenians.
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Ha, you mean initiatives, projects.. Because I was wondering what legal policies would have to do with this. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
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Speaking about the classical music’s disastrous condition, it actually depends on the viewpoint you take. I think we should consider the classical music in communication with other forms of Art and in that case we’ll have wider picture of what is to be called as a disaster. We live theoretically in the era of Post-Modern society where the aesthetics of Art drastically are changed. What is now important is the social issues spoken through Art which can have no aesthetical pleasure in them but at the same time being considered valuable because of the questions they raise. In other words, coming back to classical music, I think it would be disastrous if people every week attended classical music concerts. This would mean that there is no consideration of new aesthetics and consequently no dinamics in thinking through Art.
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I guess your point of view is pretty clear to me. However, my point does not indicate that people have to attend these kinds of concerts every week. I’m concerned about the standards of arts in Armenia.
When we are to speak about classical music we have to know that this so-called Post-Modern society and its appearance is also seen in classical music. Classical music has evolution on its own. It is not a separate discipline and is interconnected with the other forms of art. So, it always has raised social and political issues of the time. I hope, you will come across with works of classical music which would appear to you to have the social and political demonstrations of the periods in which they were created.
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Attending classical music concerts does not mean one should not or cannot attend other types of music concerts or other art events (post-modern or anything else). The concern here, as far as I understand it, is of the low attendance at many art and culture events — not just classical music concerts.
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