Tanits Toon
Yerevan, 2025
New Year Eve where
the State Philharmonia
of Armenia transforms
into a Home for Realities
The State Philharmonia of Armenia
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Tanits Toon — an immersive experience where the State Philharmonia of Armenia transforms into a Home for Realities.
  • 12 days
    Three meals a day, lectures, workshops, rehearsals, studio time, a daily 15-minute rave, and very little sleep.
  • 60 artists
    From 9 countries, working across music, sound art, visual art, animation, video, and artificial intelligence.
  • 22 curators
    Classical composers, jazz virtuosos, technical magicians, media artists, and interdisciplinary creators guiding the process through talks, workshops, and one-to-one dialogues.
  • 37 Projects
    Concerts, performances, and installations initiated by curators, participants, and the hosq team — presented at the Notations Festival & Public Program.
outcome
Inspired by the Armenian tradition of moving from house to house, the building becomes a galaxy of temporary worlds. For one night, the roles of guest and host blur as different teams craft unique environments, rituals, and rhythms within the historic halls.
The process culminates in a two-day public showcase at the State Philharmonia, presenting works developed during the lab. These pieces are conceived as independent formats — installations, performances, and hybrid works — that can travel, adapt to new spaces, and be presented internationally beyond the laboratory framework.
  • 21 concerts
    Live sets, ensembles, improvisations, and reinterpretations of archival scores.
  • 36 installations
    Sound environments, audiovisual works, interactive pieces, and spatial experiments.
  • 7 performances
    Hybrid formats between music, movement, media, and staged action.
  • 1000+ visitors
    Two days of open doors, new experiences, conversations, and shared listening.
The strongest feedback focused on the environment itself. Artists experienced the laboratory as a safe and supportive space, which lowered barriers to experimentation.
concerts
performances
installations
participants
"Notations is a place where all of us are humans"
"I used to fear sharing my ideas. What if no one would understand the way I see it in my mind? However, only after working together, I understood that this is the whole point"
Mileta Ghazanchyan
Composer & Participant | Armenia
"What surprised me the most was how different artistic perspectives could connect so naturally, and how ideas I wouldn’t have discovered alone emerged through the exchange between music, visuals, and movement."
Haig Gragian
Saz Synths & Participant | Switzerland
"As an artist, I started to feel more open and confident when it comes to working with media and technologies. Each of my ideas now gets a more voluminous expression in space"
Blue Pencil
Artist & Participant | Russia, Armenia
"I would love to see contemporary music and arts involving more people of all ages! The festival was full of people and artists from all over, all ages, all identities. An absolutely beautiful scene, I’ve never seen in Austria. The laboratory was able to do this, and we all learned from each other. This knowledge is going to stay with us for a while!"
Anika Ariana Hernández Vera
Pianist, Composer & Participant | Austria (Mexican)
"What I truly loved was the organic process of immersion. No one overloaded us with lectures or forced tours. Instead, the local guys shared their stories with such openness – random street conversations, talks with Philharmonic staff – it was a beautiful immersion into the context. It felt like living within the culture, not observing it from the outside."
Nadya Xyxu
Multimedia Artist & Participant | Russia
"I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with musicians playing acoustic instruments, to record their masterful playing of national instruments: kamancha, duduk. This immediately gives authenticity to the composition and totally changes my approach and method of working on tracks"
Elizabeth Telnaya (Black Babette)
SoundArtist & Participant | Russia
curators
community
This hosq Community Mapping is a living, interactive tool — a dynamic map of artists, curators, and collaborators engaged in the hosq ecosystem. You can explore practitioners across diverse disciplines, skill sets, and instruments, and discover unexpected connections between them.
Notations continues this year, as we prepare the next edition of the laboratory and public program, with an open call coming soon.
partners
CYFEST

The International Media Art Fest CYFEST was founded by a group of independent artists and curators in 2007. Since its inception in 2007, CYFEST’s main concerns have been to examine the dialogue between various visual languages and technology cultures, and thus to explore a way of commoning with both art professionals and scientific communities. CYFEST unites artists, curators, educators, engineers, programmers, and media activists all over the world, and creates a platform for mapping, mediation, and documentation of new media art on different regional and international levels. CYFEST is is a nomadic cultural event: throughout the year, festival projects are presented at cultural institutions around the world. Each year, the festival program includes several exhibition projects, sound art, video and educational programs.

www.cyfest.art
Yerevan State Conservatory (YSC) after Komitas was founded in 1921 as a music studio and re-founded two years later as a higher musical education institution.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Armenian professional performing culture was shaped. It was represented by the graduates of Russian and European conservatories. Violinist Hovhanness Nalbandyan, (St. Petersburg Conservatory and Berlin Musikhochschule), singer M.Akimova (Leipzig Conservatory), musicologist M.Aghayan (St. Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories), singer A.Shahmuradyan (Conservatoire de Paris) etc.

The founder and first rector of conservatory was famous Armenian composer and widely educated musician and public figure Romanos Melikyan (Saints-Petersburg Conservatory graduate)

https://conservatory.am
Armenian National Music Organization was founded by Tigran Keshishyan, Sergey Umroyan and Astghik Martirosyan on May 7, 2013.
ANM's main goal is to create an up-to-date digital collection of the recordings of the Armenian folkloric, traditional, sacred and classical music.
To this date, thousands of audio recordings have been restored, processed, digitalized and presented through the organization's website.
In addition, we have also digitalized thousands of pages of sheet music, aiming at the complete digitalization of the Armenian composers works.

https://anmmedia.am
The State Philharmonia of Armenia

The State Philharmonia of Armenia has been established in 1930. Throughout its activity, Philharmonia has played a significant role in preserving and developing Armenian musical culture. International educational and cognitive projects, concerts, festivals, competitions, master classes, presentations are organised by the institution. Philharmonia is also engaged in the production of scientific-cognitive films and publishing. The mission of Philharmonia is to contribute to the development of the country's cultural sector by presenting the best works of Armenian and world art.

https://babajanyanhall.org/en/
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