Rosy Armen is a French singer of Armenian descent. She is a multilingual singer, with most songs in French and Armenian, but also in other languages such as English, German, Spanish, and Italian.
Biography
Rosy Armen was born to Kourchoud Hohannessian from Dzhagry, Nakhitchevan and to Nvart Alozian from a suburb of Ankara. The Armenian couple had met each other after having immigrated to France in the 1920s. Rosy Hohannessian Armen was born in Paris, France, on 1 May 1939. Rosy has been singing since the age of four, when she would lead the youth orchestra of her school until she eventually started singing solo songs. Despite her parents disapproval of a career in singing, Rosy Hohannessian, later Rosy Bedrossian continued on with her passion and eventually, took the stage name Rosy Armen and had success also singing next to established French music stars in France. This success made her a well-known figure not only in France, but also all over Europe, the Soviet Union, United States and the Middle East where there were many Armenian communities and was invited to the imperial coronation as the official singer in October 1967. In 1970, she took part in the selection rounds for representing Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest. She sang the song "Gwendolyne". Julio Iglesias who was singing the same song during the competition went on to represent Spain with the song. She also partnered with Julio Iglesias. Her repertoire includes music from Aram Khachaturian, Arno Babadjanian, Michel Legrand. She sing Boris Pasternak and Yevgeny Yevtushenko poems. At the height of her career, French television covered her concerts abroad through the efforts of Michel Lancelot and Roger Benamou. In France, she gave concerts in best music theaters including one Olympia in Paris. She also sang at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, at the Los Angeles Music Center, at Place des Arts theater in Montreal, and Luzhniki Palace of Sports in Moscow. After the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, Charles Aznavour invited her to record alongside him and other singers the song "Pour toi Arménie", a song that remained in 1st place for 10 weeks in a row in the French Top 50. In 1990, she did a tour in Armenia to help the people recovering from the earthquake and to show France's support to Armenians. Already popular in the Armenian diaspora for many decades, Rosy Armen has become very popular in Armenia as well. Since the nineties Rosy Armen performed several live shows in Russia, Armenia, Los Angeles, as well as on many TV and radio shows in France and Armenia. In April 2014, she received the "Armenian Music Award" as the honor of the Armenian music in the Kremlin in Moscow from the President of Armenians in Moscow, Ara Abramyan. In December 2014, during a new ceremony, Rosy Armen received further recognition with "International Music Award" at the Moscow Kremlin, for singing in the countries of the world in different languages including Armenian. During MIDEM 2015 in Cannes, Armenia was honored to mark the centennial of the Genocide 24 April 1915, Rosy Armen received the Legion of Honor from the hands of the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan. After being honored by all these prizes she returned to the recording studio to work on her new album, expected for 2017.
