Hasmik Harutyunyan
Voice
Hasmik Harutyunyan
Armenia
Hasmik Harutyunyan was born in Yerevan, and she is one of Armenia’s best-known folk singers.
She graduated from Arno Babajanyan Music College in classical vocal and Khachatur Abovyan State Pedagogic University in the department of physics and mathematics.
Hasmik was a soloist of the Akunq Folk Ensemble of National Television and Radio and she is one of the founding members of the Shoghaken Ensemble. She has also performed with Shoghaken in the USA, Canada, the Middle East, Russia, and Europe, and in well-known concert halls such as Theatre De La Ville and the Gulbenkian Concert Hall.
Her recording Armenian Lullabies was noted by the New York Times as the best Armenian CD worldwide in 2004.
Hasmik has recorded many CDs for Traditional Crossroads with the Shoghaken Ensemble and for Face Music of Switzerland.
Hasmik is artistic director of the Hayrik Mouradian Children’s Folk Song and Dance Ensemble.
Hasmik is a Meritorious Artist of RA.
<< Purity and a haunted, resolute stillness pervade Hasmik Harutyunyan’s “Armenian Lullabies”. The words to the songs are about rocking a child to sleep, but the music barely sways. Ms. Harutyunyan sustains the almost glacial melodies in a voice both kindly and doleful, and for most of the album, she is accompanied by only an instrument or two; there are long stretches that her voice shares with only one unchanging note from a reed flute. The effect is so intimate and timeless, it’s hard to imagine the dreams of the child listening.>>
— John Pareles, The New York Times
