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The Shoghaken Folk Ensemble, recent winners of the “Best Folk Album” award at the 2008 Armenian National Music Awards, performed at the Vychodna Folk Festival in Vychodna, Slovakia, as part of the Armenia-Slovakia cultural exchange program. The ensemble was accompanied to Slovakia by Minister of Culture Hasmik Poghosyan and cultural attaché Svetlana Sahakyan.

Led by vocalists Hasmik Harutyunyan and Aleksan Harutyunyan and dudukist Gevorg Dabaghyan, the group performed Armenian song and dance as well as traditional Armenian ceremonies at the festival. At the opening concert, attended by Minister Hasmik Poghosyan, Shoghaken performed along with groups from Romania, Croatia, and the Czech Republic, each group presenting its country’s traditional folk music. At the close of the concert, Slovakia’s Culture Minister, Marek Madaric, thanked Shoghaken and presented Shoghaken members with a medal of appreciation.

During the course of the their stay in Vychodna, Shoghaken performed at various festival locations, including in the village of Liptovsky Mikulas, where the musicians presented a concert of folk and ashoughagan (troubadour) songs in the courtyard of the medieval St. Nicolaus church. After the concert, the group gave interviews and recorded a short concert for Radio Slovensko.

At the closing concert on July 5, Shoghaken treated the large outdoor audience to scenes from a traditional Armenian wedding, with the parts of the bride and groom played by young members of a folk group from Ukraine. With green and red ribbons draped over the groom’s shoulders, Hasmik Harutyunyan sang “Katsek, Berek” and Aleksan Harutyunyan sang “Ohrnyal Barerar” and “Kanachatsav,” with the sounds of the zurna and dhol drifting into the mountains of Vychodna.

Founded in 1994 in Yerevan, Armenia, Shoghaken is currently preparing f or concerts in Europe and Australia, as well as its first major concert in Yerevan, planned for Sept. 4, 2009.