YEREVAN, March 7. /ARKA/. The first concert of symphonic music as part of a target program designed to help young and talented musicians in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh to improve their skills, was held on March 6 in Aram Khachaturyan concert hall in Yerevan, Unibank’s press service reported today.

The concert entitled "Masters Teach Masters" featured the works by Tchaikovsky, Grig, Alexander Harutyunyan, Liszt and Rachmaninov - a really complex and rich program, despite the young age of the performers.

The full house enjoyed every performance, as evidenced by the admiration and incessant applause. The young performers were Ani Atayan (piano), Andranik Aghajanyan (cello), Arthur Grigoryan (pianoforte), Polina Sharafyan (violin), Andrey Kurbet (piano) and Khachik Andreasyan (pianoforte).

The musicians performed together with the State Youth Orchestra of Armenia (art director and chief conductor Sergey Smbatyan). The conductor at the concert was Ruben Asatryan.

The program designed to help young and talented musicians in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, was launched in 2013. Its objective is to reveal young and talented musicians aged 11-20 to help them improve their skills so that they can present Armenian performing art in the international arena.
The participants of the program are being taught by the best specialists and master classes are organized for them with invited experts. This approach allows young musicians to have comprehensive training and exchange of experience.

The program is implemented by the Ministry of Culture and includes such specialties as piano, violin and cello. The artistic director of the program is Armen Babakhanyan, the Honored Artist of Armenia, winner of several prestigious international competitions and the dean of the Piano Faculty at the State Komitas Conservatory.

The young musicians are winners of several international and national competitions and festivals.
Ani Atayan represented Armenia at the international music festival "Melodies of Generations" performing with the Presidential Symphony Orchestra of Russia in Georgievsky Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace.

Andranik Aghajanyan was awarded a special prize of the 9th International Tchaikovsky Competition, while Andrei Kurbet received a special prize of the International Piano Competition Gina Bachauer. Polina Sharafyan, Arthur Grigoryan and Khachik Andreasyan are winners of many musical competitions. Khachik Andreasyan has passed into the next round of an international competition of piano players devoted to Vladimir Krainev.

In his closing speech, Armen Babakhanyan expressed his gratitude to the Ministry of Culture attaching particular importance to the assistance provided for further progress of the program.

The Ministry of Culture has established scholarships for the participants of the program.
Unibank that also assisted in the conduction of the concert, has always been taking active part in public life showing vigorous assistance to sponsorship, charity and social programs, aimed at the development of education, culture, arts and sports.

"By assisting in holding such concerts, Unibank is happy to support the promotion of young talented musicians, as well as the popularization of classical music among young people," Unibank says.

Unibank was established in 2001. In 2002, it introduced Unistream system. Ripatonso Holding Limited is the key shareholder of Unibank (93.5%). In 2015, the bank was reorganized into an open stock company. Unibank runs now 46 branches across Armenia and a representative office in Moscow. -0-