Gyumri Art Week concludes with concert marking festival’s fifth anniversary

The fifth anniversary edition of the annual international contemporary art festival “Gyumri Art Week” officially concluded on Aug. 20 with a concert by the Gyumri State Brass Orchestra at Gyumri’s Central Park.

The event was organized in cooperation with the Culture and Youth Affairs Department of Gyumri City Hall.

This year, the festival was held under the theme “The City and Time,” exploring the city as a space where the past, present and future intersect and continuously reshape one another.

Lilit Tovmasyan, Head of the Culture and Youth Affairs Department of Gyumri City Hall, told Armenpress that the municipal authorities had decided to join the festival with a performance by the city’s oldest brass orchestra, giving the concert the title “The Sound of Time.”

The concert was dedicated to the 55th anniversary of the founding of the Gyumri State Brass Orchestra and the fifth anniversary of the “Gyumri Art Week” International Contemporary Art Festival.

“Art Week is an art festival that brings artists to Gyumri and brings together hundreds of representatives of the art world. At the same time, this is the festival’s ceremonial closing event and one of the important concert programs of the orchestra. The Gyumri State Brass Orchestra has a rich history and over the years has consistently been an integral part of the city’s life,” Lilit Tovmasyan emphasized.

According to her, the initiative seeks to revive a tradition in Gyumri when residents and visitors to the city would gather to spend time together during performances by the state brass orchestra in Central Park.

The fifth anniversary festival was held in Gyumri from Aug. 8-20. It hosted artists from Armenia, Austria, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, Georgia and other countries.

According to Sargis Hovhannisyan, curator of “Gyumri Art Week,” five years ago the festival began as an idea to create an international platform where contemporary art would meet Gyumri, and Gyumri would meet the world.

“Today, we can already say that this idea has become a reality. The festival brings together artists, curators, architects and other specialists who, for one week, turn Gyumri into an important stop in the global dialogue on art,” he said.

Hovhannisyan also said that foreign guests who visited the festival have already begun preparing publications and articles about Gyumri and the city’s renowned artists.