André Manoukian releases a kneaded disc from the Orient and in memory of his grandmother

André Manoukian easily recognizes this : “Honestly I didn’t know this music, all I knew about Armenia was my grandmother’s stuffed vine leaves […] and when I started this journey to the Orient, I discovered new scales, new sounds, new rhythms. For once my ancestors bring me something other than neuroses, I’m going to take advantage of it!“

This trip, he started it for a documentary (Armenia, the other face of a diaspora, by Marie-Claire Margossian) and pursued it out of passion. His Armenian music plays with all styles, from jazz to classical, including flamenco, sometimes carried by Balkan voices or that of the singer La Chica.

At the heart ofAnouch, there is obviously the one who gave her first name to the disc, her paternal grandmother, deported from her native Turkey to the Syrian desert, losing parents and children along the way. We guess a strong personality, in which the man with a thousand media projects recognizes himself − this is what saved his life during the long march. André Manoukian asked all possible details from his father, who one fine day handed him a sheet of paper. “He told me ‘here, if you want to know‘. And I read my grandmother’s ordeal“, he recalls.

“It’s music’s job to bring together […] I don’t claim anything except to play with what my grandparents left me, since they only left me that, having left there with nothing.”

Andre Manoukian

at franceinfo

Inevitably, this disc takes on a symbolic dimension, with the value of unity in a world more divided than ever. Thanks to Armenia, André Manoukian has revived his approach to the piano. It is the story of a people stuck between East and West that the musician, through his grandmother, also wanted to tell.

André Manoukian, Anouch (Pias). Album available. On tour throughout France.