OUR WEAPON IS OUR SONOROUS MUSIC

Interview with RA AF GS Military orchestra department head, chief military conductor, RA Honored Artist Colonel Armen Poghosyan

– I graduated from the Military conductors department of the Moscow Conservatory, after I was appointed to serve in the armed forces of the USSR, but a year later I resigned on my own.

– How does feel himself the musician with shoulder straps and in military uniform?

– Here there are no restrictions. Of course, this is a unique genre with its own challenges – from the carriage of the conductor to managing of the orchestra… Military band all the time is in motion, it plays and at the same time marches, creating patterns. It is difficult, but the orchestra passes a special training, hones each step, so that the sound does not wave, is harmonious with the music. You need to know the work brilliantly, then neither military uniform nor insignia will interfere.

Our work is very obliging. We must act so that our president strode proudly. Once in the residence of the president, we welcomed the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. According to protocol he had to bypass us, but he came up, shook my hand and said: “I have never heard our anthem played so well,” and showed a thumbs up as a sign of gratitude.

I have never regretted that I became a conductor, as composing music I always considered secondary to me, for me in the first place was and remains the orchestra, my service. The orchestra is an inseparable part of my life, an important cog… And my responsibility is that it is always fit … Our weapon is our sonorous music.

Shoushan Stepanyan