Lena Chamamyan Was born
in Damascus city where she finished her elementary and secondary education
through which she held many school concerts. The first of which she held at the
age of five. She started to studying music at the age of nine, she graduated
from the economics management department at Damascus University in 2002. while
she was studying at the higher institution of music in Damascus , she graduated
as a classical vocalist in 2007.
Throughout her university education, she joined many workshops in the field of
classic music with Gloria Skalki (Italy ) Karmen Filarna ( Italy ) Mia bits (
Netherlands ).
She also joined Jazz workshops, most importantly, with the German Accordionist (
Manfred leuschter ).this resulted in lena and Manfred featured on each others
albums and many concerts in Syria and Germany . She also worked with many
vocalists and musicians of different nationalities in many jazz festivals in
Syria.
The idea of the project was born before Lena started to study music
academically. Classic was mixed with oriental jazz and Armenian music to reflect
the unique essence of Lena's style as a vocalist. She was charmed from the very
beginning by the idea of mixing simple oriental tunes with cords. Many friend
from the high institution of music helped Lena understand and conceptualize the
project the first of whom was Basel Rajoub who arranged the music and managed
the progect.
They together won the middle east first award presented by radio Monte Carlo in
2006 for ( Hal Asmarellon ) album that was produced by the means of the grant
given to him by
( almawred althakafi ) institution ( Egypt ) . This helped to enrich the
artistic abilities reflected on their second step of the project , the album (
Shamat ) .
The thesis being reflected in the steps of the project can be explained in two
points:
first of all , it's an attempt to revive folkloric songs , especially Syrian
ones , in a modern style and arrangement keeping the originality of the tunes
and the lyrics in order to create a link between () monotonous oriental classic
music and contemporary world music that has a harmonic accompany and different
musical styles and instruments that contribute to enriching the tune and to
activate the beauty of its genre which helps world cultural contact by forming a
specific unique language especially outside the Arab world .
the second point is to introduce origenal compositions allowing a more free
space of tunes and lyrics as in ( Sha'am ) and ( magic) from ( Shamat ) album .
Composition will get more focus in the next albums