Los Angeles-based Element Band are set to headline the Ford Amphitheatre on Sunday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m. This show will mark the fourth time this eclectic, eight-member ensemble has played this landmark venue. Embodying the essence of World Music, Element Band sings in ten different languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Armenian, Arabic, Persian [Farsi], Bulgarian and Portuguese), and features a fusion of music from around the globe. From sweet ballads to up-tempo tunes that compel music lovers of all ages to dance in the aisles, there’s something for everyone at an Element Band Live show.

The weekend of May 21 was a memorable one for the Las Vegas parish as Western Prelate Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian joined the community to inaugurate the new St. Garabed Church Cultural Center. The festivities began on Saturday evening with a sold-out performance by the Hamazkayin “Ani” Dance Company, attended by the Prelate, Consul General of Armenia the Grigor Hovhannisyan, Very Rev. Barthev Gulumian, former Executive Council Chair Dr. Garo Agopian, Ministers of the local Armenian Evangelical Church Rev. Nerses Kopalian and Rev. Sam Aguilian, priests from the Greek and Maronite Churches, and 550 guests. The evening also featured a guest performance by the Greek youth dance group who presented traditional Greek dances.

The Armenian American Educators Association, a non-profit organization uniting Armenian educators nation-wide, held its Third Annual Scholarship Luncheon honoring local high school seniors of Armenian descent for academic excellence and extracurricular and community activism on Sunday, May 16. Six graduating Armenian-American students were awarded $500 each for their outstanding work throughout their high school careers.

More than 3,500 people gathered on Saturday, May 22nd at the 3rd Annual Armenian Food Fair and Fest on the Holy Cross Cathedral grounds to enjoy Armenian cuisine, culture, and wonderful entertainment. The Armenian Food Fair and Fest, now in its third year, attracted crowds of people from areas throughout Los Angeles, Orange County, and the San Fernando Valley.

Florida-based Bared Maronian is a multiple-Emmy Award winning producer. His latest film, “Orphans of the Genocide” is a documentary dedicated to the more than 150,000 Armenian orphans of the Genocide. The inspiration for this story was a recent article by award winning journalist Robert Fisk of “The Independent” discussing Silicon Valley engineer Maurice Missak Kelechian’s scientific research, which led to the unveiling of an Armenian orphanage in Antoura near Beirut-Lebanon, operated by Ahmad Jemal Pasha and served as a “turkification” center. This orphanage housed 1,000 Armenian orphans.

Now that Turkey has shown an unwillingness to ratify the protocols that, paradoxically, were written to address its best interests, and now that President Obama has again failed to refer to his personal acceptance of the Armenian Genocide as genocide in his April 24th message to the Armenian people, the drama of the past year has come to a close. I will leave it to others to argue whether President Sarkisian was the wily fox in the Turkish chicken coop or if Prime Minister Erdogan was done in by his ineptitude. Whatever the reason, Armenia has been saved from the insidious effects that the ratification of the protocols would have had on its political and economic interests (see “Sarkisian’s Faustian Bargain,” the Armenian Weekly, Oct. 17, 2009). A sophomoric understanding of the Turkish position would have suggested that “…Turkey…[would] not budge on the genocide issue and…[would] not forsake its ally Azerbaijan.” And just as obvious, Sarkisian would have been extremely foolhardy to have accepted the preconditions demanded by Turkey (see “The Roadmap to Normalization is a Roadmap to Oblivion for Armenia,” the Armenian Weekly, Oct. 23, 2009).

I applaud Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, with his new campaign to collect and document some of the tragic stories from Armenian genocide survivors who came to America and to include those accounts in the U.S. Congressional Record. For the last 25 years Turkey has continually denied that its intention was to exterminate its Armenian population during World War I and with its well funded lobby has successfully influenced many of our representatives.

Los Angeles-based photographer Sara Anjargolian recently exhibited her work in the engaging and interactive exhibition, How We Live. Along with another of Anjargolian’s recent projects, Not Here, How We Live focuses its lens on Armenia; while the earlier traces the realities of poverty, the latter documents the disruptive effects of labor migration on families. Like many other diasporic artists, Anjargolian also uses her medium as a vehicle for coming to terms with the role of Armenia in her own identity. As artist and theorist R. B. Kitaj notes in First Diasporist Manifesto (1989), “Diasporist [art] is an unfolding commentary on its life-source” (p. 31), and as such, it reveals the responses to the condition of being in the diaspora. Therefore, beyond their immediate subject – the portrayal of poverty-stricken families in Armenia living in dire conditions and eking out a living for themselves – Anjargolian’s photographs also engage larger themes concerning the construction of diasporic identity as it relates to Armenia.

Amnesty International on Thursday called on the United States, Turkey, China and Russia to sign on to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a hard-hitting report, alleging that powerful governments have blocked advances in global justice. The four countries and three other G20 nations – India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia – must drop their opposition to the ICC, Amnesty said, as it unveiled its annual snapshot of global human rights.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov voiced doubt on Thursday about whether Tehran would fulfill the terms of a deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey aimed at resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis.

Armenia’s entry in a popular pan-European song contest this year will engage in the competition for one of ten final spots tonight in a semifinal also featuring performers from Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia.