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The Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra unites players from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine with a message of peace and ...

Ambartsumyan said it was an ironic bit of programming in 2022, given that music written to criticize the Russian government is being played decades later in a region where Russian aggression is once again in the headlines. “It’s important for me and other musicians to realize that peace is the most important thing in life.” “I was 12 in 2008, and I remember seeing Russian soldiers in the streets,” Tsenteradze said, referring to the occupation of Georgia by Russian forces in August 2008 before a cease-fire was brokered after 12 days. It’s a conflict that much of the world seems to not know much — or care much — about, he said. “We were a little bit scared when the festival started in 2019 because there is always something going on or that could explode at any time,” said Diana Sargsyan, 23, an Armenian violinist. [Martin Engstroem](https://www.verbierfestival.com/en/musician/engstroem-martin/), the director of the well-heeled Verbier Festival in Switzerland. The festival began in September 2019 on an estate northeast of the capital of Tbilisi once owned by the 19th-century Romantic poet [Prince Alexander Chavchavadze](https://www.advantour.com/georgia/tsinandali.htm). “You have to start with the young people to solve problems through connections rather than divisions.” It’s been a difficult three years since the orchestra debuted in September 2019, given the coronavirus pandemic (which stopped it from performing at the festival for two years), as well as continuing tensions between Georgia’s neighbors Azerbaijan and Armenia, and, of course, the lingering war in nearby Ukraine. Some 80 performers from seven countries from the Caucasus region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and a few neighboring nations — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine — will play three of the 19 concerts at the festival, which runs Sept. In February, Grigory Ambartsumyan, a 22-year-old Ukrainian violinist of Armenian descent, awoke in Kyiv to the sound of bombs. This year, there is an urgent sense of camaraderie and hope among these young musicians and the festival organizers in this historically volatile region.