Yesterday Armenia announced that it will bring six artists of Armenian origin together to form “Genealogy”, its Eurovision 2015 supergroup. These artists come from five continents, and only one of them was fully born and bred in the Motherland. The preview video gave us a small hint in the form of a map, which you can see above. We can see highlighted cities — presumably New York, Paris, Addis Ababa, Yerevan, Tokyo and Sydney. Compare that with the list of artists published by OGAE Armenia, and you can start to form a picture of who the group will consist of. Inga Arshakyan, Tamar Kaprelian, Athena Manoukian, Vahe Tilbian, Essai and Stephanie Topalian certainly fit the bill geographically….
Inga Arshakyan
Inga & Anush, Armenia’s 2009 representatives, brought a dance ready folk-pop masterpiece, which sadly was lost in the point vacuum created by Norway that year. They sang in sync, and brought a memorable stage performance, utilizing traditional folk costumes and infusing them with an amazing, modern laser show. They are one of the most enchanting Eurovision duets ever. And now we may get to see half of the act again, as Inga will reportedly represent the sisters in the Armenian supergroup! Inga lives in Yerevan, so could be the Armenian-born act at the centre of all this.
Tamar Kaprelian
Talk about “building bridges”. Tamar Kaprelian was born in 1986 in Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix to an Armenian-British father and an Israeli-British mother. However, she identifies completely as Armenian-American. She was raised in California and Georgia, and launched her musical aspirations after discovering the works of Billy Joel and Paul McCartney. Tamar currently lives in New York, which is another spot on our secret map, and it brings America into the game.
She’s obviously a huge OneRepublic fan, as she kicked off her career by winning their cover contest. Her cover of “Apologize” led to a record deal. Since then, she’s stalled a bit, having only released a single album and an EP. However, Eurovision can turn it all around for her.
Furthermore, Tamar seemingly outted herself as an ESC contestant on Twitter the night before the Genealogy announcement.
I know I’ve been away for a minute (musically).. But I have something awesome to announce tomorrow
— TAMAR Kaprelian (@TamarKaprelian) February 11, 2015
Athena Manoukian
We first started dreaming of Athena Manoukian, a rising Greek-Armenian pop star, on January 21. She raised eyebrows when she posted this on Facebook.
MTV describes her this way:
This savvy teen and goddess of the stage was discovered a few years ago and immediately sky rocketed into Europe’s dance clubs overnight with her phenomenal vocal range, stage presence and catchy pop/dance tunes.
From a very young age, she showed her talent in music and incredible ability in performing on stage. A true show piece indeed!
The nineteen year old is originally from Greece but has Armenian heritage. Digging a bit into her history, we also found more reason to suspect Athena Manoukian of accepting any Eurovision proposals coming her way. She competed in the Greek national final for Junior Eurovision back in 2008, where she placed seventh with “To fili tis Afroditis”.
Her Facebook page says that her homeown is Sydney and she was recently there working on her latest music video as well. Is this our Armenian Down Under?
We featured her in our recent Armenia poll, and she placed 15th, showing there is a real hunger for her.
Read more about Athena Manoukian
- Athena Manoukian’s official website
- Athena Manoukian’s official Twitter
- Athena Manoukian’s official Facebook
- Athena Manoukian in Eurovision 2015 Facebook page
Essaï
Essaï is a French singer, songwriter and composer with Armenian origins. He composed his first song when he was 12 years old. As a student he performed in a Pop Idol band, and quickely gained popularity as a solo artist as he performed on countless TV and radio shows. Nowadays, he performs not only in France but also the United States. Is it his star, which shines brightly in Paris? We will know soon.
Vahe Tilbian
Vahe is a one hunderd percent Armenian, but he was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His music cannot be described by one word. He sings in different styles: rock, R&B, reggae, techno, Armenian, Ethiopian and even Latin music. He was nominated for a number of Armenian music awards, and in 2012 he released his album “Mixology”, which brought him a lot of success internationally. Will he be the one to bring a part of Africa to the contest?
Stephanie Topalian
Born to a Japanese mother and an American father in L.A., Stephanie Topalian has surprisingly made a name for herself in Japan. As a teen she sent her demos all over the world, and received the strongest response from a Japanese music producer named Joe Rinoie. The rest is history. Her songs, including “Kimi Ga Iru Kagiri”, have become huge anime hits.
And what do you think? Would you like to see these artists in Vienna? Do you believe the rumours? Let us know!
Why Inga? Couldn’t Armenia get a new singer to represent the Armenia-side of Genealogy? Or perhaps the point is to have Inga to represent the established Armenian who is “building bridges” to the other continental armenian performers?
Whatever, I’m not tasked for this lol
Here we go again… Please everyone, can we all be patient and wait for the actual song before we start to criticize and say negative things? As we all know, every country participates to win. Otherwise, nobody would give a damn. Some of the reasons why Armenia came up with this idea of sending singers from different countries are… Over the past 7+ years, Armenians around the world are anxiously following the ESC, and they want to be involved somehow. Another reason is to bring the Armenians together from all over the world. Honestly, I think it will be a… Read more »
You can’t have Inga without Anush!
I hope these are all true – particularly fingers crossed for Inga and Athena! <3
Can’t wait for what they have in stores for us.
Interesting. I would definitely like to see how all these six artists will work together on stage.
Yes…On the center of the flower we should put INGA from Armenia… About the other 5 petals of the flower… I think that it was not right to pick the greek armenian girl Athena as her real base is in Greece that is in Europe and she changed her ”hometown” fb place to Sydney Australia just to get picked only and go to EuroVision.. Really unfair 4 a true Australian Armenian that would really live in this continent indeed…I think that they should had picked another person in her place that would had been raised and living 4 real in… Read more »
And could it be the american one Serj Tankian, the singer from System Of A Down? Even he was born in Libane he has armenian origins. Woudn’t it be a blast?! ^^^
@Thiefo – Her father is Armenian-American. Hence, her last name.
becca, Jessica Mauboy has nothing related to Armenia AT ALL, therefor she cannot represent Armenia..
I understand the connection of all these artists with Armenia, so they all make sense… except Stephanie, what about her? Does she have armenian roots or something? Because you only mentioned her japanese mother and american father.
Armenia, either you pick Monica Avanesyan as the “center of the flower”, or I’ll blow my Genealogy Flower Whistle.
No! Genealogy should look like THIS:
*America (Petal 1) – Tamar Karpelian
*Asia (Petal 2) – Stephanie Topalian
*Africa (Petal 3) – Vahe Tilbian (PS: His appearance reminds me of Adam Levine 🙂 )
*Europe (Petal 4) – Hélène Ségara
*Australia (Petal 5) – Jessica Mauboy
*Armenia (Center of the flower) – Monica Avanesyan (She’s 16 now!)
Ok PP but what I mean is that Armenia can send a good song, not all the countries and groups send and sing same kind of songs. I, personally trust on them and expect a strong song.
Ok, people. Here’s the difference between what Switzerland did and what Armenia is doing.
1. Switzerland brought together artists from different countries, different nationalities for the sole purpose of singing a song about for unicef (which is great and all, but it’s not a eurovision theme);
2. Armenia on the other hand is bringing together ARMENIANS from across the globe for the purpose of uniting them. Think of this as the hybrid version of Apricot Stone.
Kris
I write this because Switzerland in 2006 , they made group from singers from Switzerland,Sweden, Israel, Germany /Portuga, Malta, Bosnia and they sing If we all gave a little, song almost ideal for UN or Unicef.
Song from Armenia is called Don’t Deny and i think that wili be similar with switzerlanda song from 2006. For result Armenia wiil get many points thank to huge diaspora in all ex soviet countries 7 countries wili gave them some points if they go to final (0 point from Azerbaijan) and huge diaspora in France, Belgium, Netherads, and many points from Greece.
Dude ! I have no clue where you found information about Inga and Japan, But she lives in Armenia! Only one grandmother of Tamar wasn’t Armenian (Brit). Her great-grandparents are from Old Armenia. On her mother’s side of the family, her grandfather Girair Kaprelian was born in Kharpert and her grandmother Hasmik Kaprelian was born in Mousel. They met in Iraq, where her grandfather owned a successful textile manufacturing business in the Middle East. On her father’s side, her grandfather George Mardirossian was born in Jerusalem and her grandmother Victoria Ewin was born in Liverpool. They met in Egypt and… Read more »
Sorry but Armenia is not Switzerland, the latter always sends bad songs. The most important is the song.
tamar is 100% one of them!
I think this project wili be finish like Switzerland in 2006.
It will not be a good year for Armenia in the ESC. They should achieve worse result than a year ago in televoting, while the jurors prefer western countries than eastern. Top 5 for Armenia is excluded.
Guys Inga lives in Yerevan. Who lives in Japan is Stephanie Topalian.