The four musicians of the band Nemra have come from Armenia to the Boston area to play for the first time in the United States. They perform original alternative rock songs in English and new renditions of traditional Armenian folksongs in Armenian.
The band is composed of two pairs of siblings, lead singer and guitarist Van Yeghiazaryan and bass guitarist and backup singer Vaspur Yeghiazaryan, and keyboard player and singer Marianna Karakeyan and her brother Marek Zaborski on drums. They have issued two albums, “Mubla” (2016) and “Hmm” (2019), along with a number of singles.
Creating a World through Music
Van explained that both the band’s name Nemra, and the name of their first album “Mubla” are reversed versions of the words Armen (the root of what the world calls the Armenians) and album. The reasoning behind this, he said, is “we in general like to look from different points of view at any matter. For example, if something is said to be white, we want to examine it in various ways to confirm that it is white. We don’t participate in brainwashing. We want to form our own opinions by thinking and looking from different points of view.”
However, he said, they don’t espouse any particular philosophy or ideology and do not try to give advice or educate through their music. Instead, he said, “What is important is that we attempt to be sincere to the greatest degree.”
“In addition,” Marianna said, there is the idea that in this reality, we created the planet Nemra. Often there are certain things that we don’t like in this reality, so we go to our reality, to our world, and transport people with us.” Visitors to the band’s website (https://nemraband.com/) immediately are drawn into this world with the greeting “Welcome to Planet Nemra, where music is life.”
The Armenian Mirror Spectator
