The World Wide Web of Nune

The World Wide Web of Nune

March 6, 2001

By Paul Chaderjian

(Anywhere, March 2001) -- While most artists talk-the-talk, they don't necessarily walk-the-walk. They plan, plot, prepare, promise and dream but fail to materialize their object d’art. That's not the case with one of the hardest working Armenian performers in the world, Nune Yesayan. Her world wide web is now so vast and her music so popular, that the singer sometimes wonders how she keeps up. That’s the theme of one of Nune’s new songs.

In her new CD ‘Love’ Nune sings about her meteoric career with infinite jest. She raps about her endless jaunts across the oceans and around the globe, her concerts in halls, arenas and auditoriums, interviews with multilingual journalists and reporters and meeting with officials, civilians and clergy. All that, she sings, leaves her no time to find her true love. 'Tu eents, yess kez' is one of the many original songs on Nune's latest album. Due out this month, Nune's fifth album is all about love -- romantic, maternal, paternal, and fraternal and love for one’s people and ethnic heritage.

(Yerevan, May 2000) -- "Why Love," I ask sitting across Nune at a sidewalk cafe across Mashdotz Street from the Opera House in Yerevan. It's the magic hour in Armenia’s capital city in late May of last year. Couples stroll down Sayat Nova, young men dressed in black have congregated across the park, and there's a large group forming outside the back entrance of the Opera.

Nune, dressed as elegantly as Juliette Binoche in ’Chocolat,’ is enjoying a small break between rehearsal with her band and her appearance at the Opera to be a panelist at Sayat Nova original music festival. This is the final round of the competition and the semi-finalists will be performing their compositions. Nune has been asked to serve on the same panel with her childhood idols like Raysa Megerdichian.

"Love," she says picking up her hot cup of tea off a white plastic patio table, stalling to find the right words. "It's a basic need to love, be loved and share our love. Everyone understands it, and it's what makes us alive." She says she doesn't know how many songs or which songs will make up the album yet, but she's considering from a list of at least two dozen. “It won’t be ready until next year at this time. There is a lot of work to do to pull it together.”

"What about you," I ask. "Are you in love?"

"We have to go," she says looking at her watch, a barely visible blush reddening her face and a wistful sadness can be detected in her eyes. A few seconds later, we're in her hunter green Honda Rav4 with Nune driving aggressively to avoid pot holes on Yerevan's malnourished streets. "But love doesn't feed the belly or take care of an entire family," she says sounding like a woman in her 80s. "So we have to keep going, persevering and enduring."

(Detroit, September 2000) -- "It’s the flu," she says into her wireless phone. She's sitting on top of one of the dozen crates traveling with her and her band on their concert tour -- the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Friday night, a bus ride to Fresno the next morning, a concert at the Saroyan on Saturday and a third one in San Francisco on Sunday. Now, Nune is sick to her stomach, has a head cold, hungry and waiting for a piece of lost luggage in Motor City.

"We have to be in New York tonight," she says, "and I can't believe I’m sick now." The next night at the Alice Tully Concert Hall at the Lincoln Center, no one knows that the 30-year-old is feverish and should be in bed. She’s the ultimate, the consumate performer and professional, not even allowing her physical ailments to slow her down or steal her charisma and charm.

She takes the Big Apple by storm. The stuffy and oh-so-haute Lincoln Center program says: "Nune Yesayan's haunting and enchanting renditions of ancient and classical Armenian songs of village life and her sensuous and vivacious modern tales of romance and strength resonate in Armenian communities all over the world. She appears at the Lincoln Center with Djivan Gasparyan, the master of the Armenian wooden flute, the duduk. The marriage of the primitive and unnerving sound of the duduk and the vocals of Armenia's modern-day minstrel have already mesmerized audiences in Asia, Europe, Australia and now the U.S."

(Washington, D.C., May 1999) - -In the largest room on Capitol Hill, the chamber which serves as the U.S. House of Representatives, stands the gentleman from California, the Honorable George Radanovich, reading a tribute to Nune Yesayan. “Mr. Speaker,” begins the 19th District Congressman, “I rise today to recognize Ms. Nune Yesayan for doing her part to rejuvenate the Armenian soul and bridge generational and cultural gaps, bringing families and strangers together with her music.”

(Los Angeles, February 2000) -- The rain does not stop. It's relentless. Nune sits at the McDonald's at the Science Museum across the street from the University of Southern California eating a Yogurt Parfait, waiting for the next showing of 'the Pyramids' at the IMAX theatre. "We need to encourage our young people, our young artists so they can continue our language and our traditions," she says looking at kids playing with a set of roped balloons near the museum's stairs.

Watching the 70-feet across and seven floor high IMAX screen and seeing the Egyptian Pyramids bigger than life will be a test of endurance for Nune. As Omar Sharif explains to his granddaughter the toil it took to build these larger than life structures, Nune will try not to be overcome by the claustrophobia, which enveloped her when she walked inside the real Pyramids. That was then, and this is now. IMAX amazes her and the clarity of the hieroglyphics captured on film inspire her and fuel her mission to ensure the survival of her people‘s history.

(Boston, January 2001) -- In the archives room of the 150-year-old Boston Herald, a Bean Town landmark, a history buff skims through the pages chronicling the fall of the Soviet Union, the sinking of the Titanic and two world wars, and he finds an article by the Herald's Jules Crittenden about Nune. "Rare is the nightclub singer who hasn't secretly dreamed of becoming a cultural icon," writes Crittenden. "Rarer still is the one who crosses musical genres to achieve that dream."

"I think her new CD truly represents us, the Armenians of the world," says singer and musician Hygo Ohannessian, who was sent an advance copy of 'Love' to review. "We are such diverse people and listen to all types of music, and of course we want to incorporate it in our daily lives. In 'Love,' although the music and words are Armenian, they have a jazzy and modern flair. For example, the song 'Hairig' and the one about mothers is a great rendition. The classic 'Kalees es’ is great too, she really jazzed it up. And there’s a bit of rock-n-roll at the end. If you really listen, the CD has a bit of jazz, Motown, a hint of blues and classic and traditional, pure Armenian."

(Glendale, August 2000) -- The Democratic National Convention has left not a single rental in Southern California and traffic jammed all the way to Glendale. The Vice President is giving his acceptance speech while Nune is outside the Starbuck's on Brand Boulevard being interviewed by a television crew. A car drives buy honking; a teenager inside the car yells 'we love you, Nune.'

She says she loves the attention and talks about her upcoming concerts in California, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York and the Middle East. She talks openly about how touching it is to have strangers stop her at airports to thank her, how wonderful when grandmothers kiss her cheeks and teenagers write her fan mail. Even the cameraman and reporter are enamored and shyly leave. She says she needs something sweet and asks her driver and me what we want to drink. I tell her - I'm telling ‘the’ Nune to buy me a caramel frappaccino.

In 'Love,' the svelte, petite crooner sings about attention, affection and adulation. The most heart wrenching songs on the album are ones about the lover left for another, the woman waiting for love and the love of nation, so necessary in a turbulent time in Armenian history. "There's a joke you hear these days," says Nune, "that the last person to leave the Republic should turn off the lights and shut the door behind them. We have to do what we can to tell the world that our lights will never go out and our door will never shut." She vows to keep repeating this; it’s her new mantra she says.

(Paris, November 2000) -- In a taxicab outside Charles De Gaulle Airport near Paris, an exhausted Nune is waiting to be taken to her hotel room. She's been up since the day before Thanksgiving, arriving in Los Angeles a day before the international Armenia Fund telethon. Producer-Director Ara Madzounian asked her to be one of the four hosts this year because of the performer’s name recognition and talent.

The telethon was a success with thousands watching coast-to-coast in the US, in Armenia and Europe. Nune’s image was also seen via Armenian Radio Dot Com in the most remote corners of the globe, as Nune’s voice asked her fans and strangers to help rebuild their ancestral homeland by donating what they could. After the exhausting morning in a Southern California studio, Nune had rushed to LAX around noon to fly to Paris for her Saturday night concert.

"The last song on the new album," says Nune, "is about a woman singing to her mother about how tough her life is, how much she hurts." Those who’ll hear the song will hear the actress in Nune belting out one torturous and emotional lyric after another. “A mother’s love is different, unexplainable,” she says referring to her own mother who helped her heal her heart when it was broken years ago during a violent and sour relationship.

"Do you get your strength from your mother," I ask.

"Akh, mayrigs," she says and smiles.

(San Luis Obispo, January 2001) -- In a dark apartment near the Central Coast of California, Pablo Tailanian, the young architect of a local bank's web site, is up past midnight doing his part to preserve his heritage through music. His goal is to finish Nune's new Internet web site before the release of 'Love' in March. He has to think about the text, fonts, graphics, music and video streams. At his side, Houri Vartanian, another Nune fan, gives a thumbs up and thumbs down to what www.nune.org will eventually look like.

"We took our parents to the Fresno concert," says Tailanian, "and now they can't wait for her new album. You should see all people on Napster talking about Nune before the site was shut down. It's amazing. There are young people everywhere downloading and uploading Nune songs. It’s crazy. They all want to share Nune with each other because they like her so much.”

"There's even a Armenian band in England riding on her fame," says Vartanian, an avid fan and branch manager at the bank. "They use the word 'nune' on their song titles on Napster so that people who look for Nune on the web will pull up their band too. It's kinda pathetic to use her fame like that, but it’s quite flattering. Who was it that said imitation is the best compliment?"

(New York, October 2000) -- A young filmmaker from NYU, the next Steven Soderbergh or Steven Spielberg, wants Nune to star in his next movie. "It's going to be about an Armenian mother struggling to make ends meet in the Big Apple," he says. He even has financing worked out; his father is footing the bill. All Nune has to do is give him five weeks in the Spring. He's already arranged for appearances and screenings. "Will you do it," he asks, “will you?” Are you serious, I want to know?

"We're talking to a lot of people," says Garbis Titizian of Prime Entertainment, Nune's management company. "Everyone wants to work with Nune. Her American fans are asking her to perform in English, her Persian fans wants her to sing in their language and pair up with their stars for concerts.”

“She has a huge following in the Middle East,“ says Titizian, “and they want her to sing a song in their languages. We‘re thinking about it, but for now, she’s going to work on another CD with only Sayat Nova songs." Titizian says he is grateful to the Armenia Fund and other Armenian organizations who have put their arms around Nune and want her to help them achieve their charitable and humanitarian goals. "It means a lot to her to be involved with helping Armenian causes."

(Fresno, September 2000) -- An elderly couple approach Nune in the atrium restaurant of the Radisson Hotel in downtown Fresno and ask her to sign their CD's. Nune smiles and talks to them even though she is exhausted and showing early signs of a flu. She's about to go on stage at the Saroyan Theater of the Fresno Convention Center for a benefit concert and barely touches her chicken sandwich. She has already been interviewed by local channel KSEE (NBC) and KJEO (CBS), checked the sound system after arriving in Fresno, and is now entertaining questions from a dozen locals who have taken out to dinner. Ziggy, her tall waiter who looks like an Armenian Jude Law, asks if she didn’t like her food. “No, it’s fine,“ she says.

Ziggy comes back a few minutes later to ask if Nune minds if he asks why strangers are asking for her autograph. She smiles and looks around the table. I show Ziggy the article from Fresno Bee’s Life section with a half-page artist's rendering of Nune’s image. "Wow," he says, "she’s a real celebrity. Can I come to the show?" He tells her he’s going to be a wildfire firefighter and is in college. He asks for her autograph and walks away blushing.

The next morning David Hale of the Bee writes, "at first thought, singer Nune Yesayan and duduk artist Djivan Gasparyan seem an unlikely pairing for the concert of Armenian music. What the performers have in common, besides their love of the music of their homeland, is that they are perhaps the most popular Armenian entertainers in the world."

The fifth cut from ‘Love’ is bound to make Hale scream. It’s an original song with music composed and lyrics written by Djivan. The song pair Nune with the ancient duduk in a duet. As Nune sings, the instrument sings back in the role of her wise and all-knowing ancestors. Nune’s soft yet courageous voice wraps itself around Gasparyan's notes and speaks of her need to tell the world of the wounds of the heart, and her endless dreams of the man who has left her alone on a cold, silent and dark night.

(Yerevan, February 2001) -- Nune pours coffee from a thermos, shaking her head back and forth. She is at her office next to the rehearsal hall she rents for her band waiting for the artwork of her album cover. Her CD’s should have been printed by now, but she keeps calm. Nune always keeps calm, in the eye of any storm, when the sound system fails during a concert or a musician tickles the wrong ivory. "You have to be ready for anything going wrong at any time," she says and keeps ready and steady, always focused, always taking one step at a time. The artwork will eventually be done; she knows that. The record will eventually distributed, and it will all be in a day's work, one day at a time.

(Vegas, November 2011) -- Flashbulbs sparkle off Nune’s gold gown. She is on stage, shining bright in the spotlight, in front of yet another audience left in awe. It's the perfect setting for a set of songs about 'Love.' The perfect setting among the glitter and glamour of the entertainment capital of the world, as if the stage, this resort and the city were planned only for her songs and only for this moment.