Whole Life: Paros Choir rises above disability for the sake of a song
By Gayane Abrahamyan
ArmeniaNow reporter

“While bed-ridden, I saw some young people in wheelchairs playing tennis, and singing. I said ‘they are crazy, how do they manage it?!’ Then I became as crazy as they were and began to sing in the choir.”

For Samvel Tovmasyan, 55, life was likely to end when he learned he would be unable to walk. But “Paros” -- it means “lighthouse” – became, indeed a beacon out of darkness.

All 25 members of the Paros Chamber Choir have motor-skill problems, due either to injury or disease.

The choir (www.unison.am) began in 1993, on the initiative of academician Olga Juharyan and the International Post-Trauma Rehabilitation Center (International Red Cross).

“I was quite pessimistic about the idea of creating the choir at the beginning,” says founder and musical director of the choir Armen Alaverdyan. “Of course it was acceptable as a means for psychological rehabilitation, but I would never think it would last so long, the choir would produce discs and would have reached such a high professional level.”

The founder’s pessimism was based on technical as well as social reasons. There is a reason why choirs stand. It is because the breathing mechanism simply is more utilized than from a sitting position.

But will has overcome traditional technique, to help the Paros choir. There were other barriers to cross, too.

“It was difficult to convince us,” says singer Vardan Bardughyan. “We wouldn’t believe we could do it. We didn’t want to appear on stage in our condition. But the atmosphere here and the hope to have success gave us power to overcome the psychological difficulties. Many psychological problems were overcome in the choir.”

The first appearance of Paros took place in 1994. In 1997 the choir had its first tour abroad. In 1998 the choir had concerts in Tbilisi devoted to the 10th anniversary of the Spitak earthquake in Armenia.

“Our first appearances were noticeably different. The attitude of the audience changed as we did. People were only crying and didn’t pay any attention to whether the singing was good or bad. But for us it was important to be valued not because of compassion but for objective reasons,” says Alaverdyan.

A trip to England in 2000, was a turning point. Unlike Armenia, no one there paid attention to the row of wheelchairs in the streets of England.

“At the Jersey International Choir Festival we understood that we can’t amaze the world by just singing seated in wheelchairs, and that we need to perform on high professional level. We achieved it by introducing solfeggio (learning to read music) classes for the choir members and by increasing the number of rehearsals.”

In former times the choir had rehearsals in the corridor of the rehabilitation center once per month. Today it has a center in Yerevan equipped for disabled, made possible by a donation from the Strauch-Kulhanjian family, who learned about the choir and became sponsors. The choir now has several rehearsals per week.

Attending the rehearsals is also a problem. Neither transport, nor the buildings in Armenia are fit for traveling by wheelchair and the organizers of the choir have to call a taxi for each of its members. The expenses for the latter are also undertaken by the Strauch-Kulhanjian family.

“Roger Strauch, not an Armenian by descent, loves the choir very much,” says Peter Abajian, the Executive Director of the choir. (Abajian moved to Armenia just a couple weeks ago from California, where he had previously been director of the Armenian Assembly of America’s West Coast office.) “He founded the Paros Foundation as an opportunity to provide maximum help to the choir and its members. Roger believes Paros can become a national symbol to inform the world about Armenian culture and its ability to be a strong nation.”

A primary task for the choir today is to get a special bus, as taxi drivers frequently refuse to take the choir members’ wheelchairs. Abajian hopes to solve a number of this kind of problems through fund raising.

Meanwhile, the choir is preparing for a September 20 concert during which it will perform pieces of Armenian, Russian and Western composers of various genres.

The concert will take place at the Komitas Chamber Music Hall in Yerevan, which is the only concert hall in Armenia that is wheelchair accessible.

“I worry about the coming concert very much, but I am also excited,” says singer Gohar Stepanyan, 26. “It also proves the choir is our whole life and we get new energy with every success that we have.”