Loading details…
Artist
Shoghaken Ensemble
12+ albums
Armenianfolktraditionalarmeniaarmenian folk
about
The Shoghaken Folk Ensemble (a.k.a. Soghaken Folk Ensemble) is an Armenian musical group that performs and records Armenian folk and troubador music. The ensemble was founded by Gevorg Dabaghyan in 1991 (or 1995) in Yerevan, Armenia. The group includes the singers Hasmik Harutyunyan and Aleksan Harutyunyan, the dudukist Gevorg Dabaghyan and the kanon player Karineh Hovhannessian. Its members play traditional Armenian instruments including the duduk, the zurna, the dhol, the kanon, the kamancha, and the shvi. The Shoghaken Ensemble has become one of the most respected traditional music ensembles in Armenia. Dedicated to rediscovering and continuing Armenia’s extraordinary folk music history, the group presents music from a broad geographical and historical span using traditional instruments and song styles. Popular dances and troubadour (ashugh) melodies are interspersed with more unusual emigrant- and work-songs, medieval epic verse, mournful wedding dances (a peculiarly Armenian oxymoron) and exquisite lullabies (numbering in the hundreds and renowned for their haunting lyricism). Shoghaken was involved in several recordings in 2001. In May, Shakeh Avanessian, of London, and Laura Shannon, of Scotland, recorded an album of Armenian dance melodies in Yerevan. Avanessian and Shannon are professional dancers who present traditional dance in concerts and seminars in Europe and the Middle East. The recording, Gorani: Traditional Dances from the Armenian Homeland, is named for
