InternationalArtyom Manukyan: young, innovative, and a true musician in every sense of the word
From baroque to hip hop, this multitalented artist of Armenian Navy Band fame sees no limits
Published: Thursday November 13, 2008
Katuner performing at Stop Club. Manukyan in the back on bass. Anush Babajanyan
Yerevan - One of the best things about living in Armenia is the music. With a tiny population of less than three million people, the amount of sheer talent and innovation coming out of this country is nothing short of remarkable. Yerevan has a vibrant, varied, and refreshingly unpretentious live music scene that's always full of surprises.
The first time I walked into Stop Club, a small, cozy venue in the heart of Yerevan, I felt like I had inhaled a lungful of jazz - and it wasn't just the cloud of thick, blue smoke looming overhead. That was the first time I heard Katuner play, and the experience was absolutely energizing. It was also the night I met Artyom Manukyan, the band's multitalented, groundbreaking cellist and bass guitarist, best known for his key role in Armenian Navy Band.
The brainchild of Arto Tunçboyaciyan, Armenian Navy Band has a completely original sound that Tunçboyaciyan has coined as avant-garde folk. Anyone who has heard Armenian Navy Band live comes away moved in some way. "Arto is really telling stories through his music," says Manukyan. "Armenians especially have to hear it because it's telling stories from our past. Through modern arrangements and feelings, he evokes a sense of the ancient, something from the soul. I always feel something of the essence of my grandparents in the music." While Armenian Navy Band's exact style is hard to describe, the young musician sums up its texture and its core pretty well. "The stories may be be old, but the sound is not," he adds. "The band is hyperactive, sometimes too much so. It's the craziest band I've ever played with."
Manukyan was only 21 when he joined Armenian Navy Band. He was, and still is, the youngest member of the group. "At first, every called me ‘kid', and I was a kid," he says, "but musically, I started to prove myself and showed that I wanted to learn." Arto Tunçboyaciyan has been a huge inspiration and musical influence for him since he was a child. "I remember going to see him perform with Night Ark in 1998," he says, "and I thought, ‘This is the greatest musician I've seen in my life.' I even went and got a photo with him and I was so happy."
In 2002, Vahagn Hayrapetyan, Armenian Navy Band's keyboardist, called him and asked him to play cello on one track, and of course he was overjoyed by the prospect of playing with his childhood hero. The young cellist left enough of an impression on Tunçboyaciyan during that one session that in 2004, when the band needed a new bassist, he gave him a call. "I'll never forget that first night playing with Navy Band," he says, "It was just past 8 o'clock and they called me asking me to play at a 9 o'clock show. It was my first time seeing the notes, first time on stage with the band... it was something." Though Manukyan was trained as a classical cellist, he took to double and electric bass very quickly, and is now one of Armenia's most sought out bass guitarists.
Katuner ("Cats", in Armenian) is a relatively new band that first came together in the winter of 2004. Arto Tunçboyaciyan asked Vahagn Hayrapetyan and Tigran Suchyan, who plays trumpet in Armenian Navy Band, to put together a band that would give young Armenian musicians an opportunity to showcase their talent. So they called Manukyan, and he started playing both bass guitar and cello with Katuner a few months before he was asked to join Armenian Navy Band. Katuner, in its own right, has an extremely unique sound. Also falling into the fusion category of avant-garde folk, Katuner is made up of a group of Armenia's most talented young musicians. Their sound seamlessly blends jazzy rhythms with the ancient sounds of traditional Armenian instruments like the zurna and duduk.
Like most Armenian musicians, Artyom Manukyan is a full-time musician, in the true sense of the word. Music isn't just something he does on the side, or in between part-time jobs - it's his livelihood, his sole source of income, and his lifelong passion. "I think in musical terms," says the young musician. "I see everything through music." His latest project is a jazz quartet called Nooz, where he presents the cello, classically used in chamber music, as a modern instrument. I recently went to a Nooz show and was absolutely in awe of the sounds that the talented artist was able to produce from an instrument I always associated with Bach and Brahms.
From baroque to hip hop, Artyom Manukyan's musical flair seems to have no limits. Somehow, between practices and gigs with three different bands, the multi-talented artist has found time to nurture yet another one of his musical passions, hip hop. He and a friend from Los Angeles are starting a productions company called New People in Yerevan. They have created arrangements for some of Armenia's biggest hip hop and pop stars, like Hay Tgheq and Inga & Anush. It may seem a bit unusual for a classically trained cellist to branch into hip hop, but hip hop has been a driving force in Manukyan's life for as far back as he can remember. Now that he is actually creating and working in the field, it's like his childhood dreams are coming true. "Hip hop is my second life," he says with a smile.
At 25, Manukyan still has a long career ahead of him, and considering he started playing cello almost by chance, who knows what exciting twists and turns the future will bring. Cello is one of those instruments that sort of got left behind with the classical era. With the rise of jazz and rock, it just didn't make the cool list. There's no shortage of drummers and guitarists out there, but when was the last time someone told you they played the cello? Manukyan, who started playing when he was nine, is something of an advocate for the versatility and modern relevance of the antiquated instrument, but his love affair with music and with the cello had a not so glamorous start.
