monument on
Victory Day (9 May).
History On 28 January 1992, by order of the Minister of Defense
Vazgen Sargsyan, the 1st Airborne Regiment was formed, which also included the first military band in Armenia. On 14 September of that year, Sargsyan created the Military Band Service of the Ministry of Defense, which was removed from the Ministry of Defense's structure and transferred to the General Staff on 25 January 1996. The actual band of the general staff was formed on 25 November 1992 by the band's current director
Armen Poghosyan. On 2 February 2009, the service was reapproved as a military division.
Events Domestically, it cooperates with the
honour guard of the Defense Ministry and has a separate branch in the battalion. The band has also performed in military tattoos, such as the
Spasskaya Tower military tattoo in 2017. The band performed as a guest contingent in the
Liberation Day Parade in
Stepanakert in 2012. In 2013, during his state visit to
Armenia, the
President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko praised the band, including its director
Armen Poghosyan for its performance of
My Belarusy (the Belarusian national anthem), showing a thumbs up as a sign of gratitude and telling Poghosyan: When the Band of the General Staff performed in February 2019 at the opening ceremony of IDEX 2019 in
Abu Dhabi,
The National (a private English-language
daily newspaper based out of the
United Arab Emirates) published an article describing the performance of the band and its appellant effect on the audience: ::
"No-one was quite sure why the Armenian Military Orchestra was taking part until they started, that is. Armenia, it turns out, is a superpower in the world of military orchestras. A general fearlessly marched a gauntlet of swords slashing up and down in perfect symmetry, allowing him the pass through unharmed. An impressed Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, were pictured on big screens leading the applause" As of January 2016, the band took part in 1,700 governmental events.
Personnel Currently, potential musicians participate in 5-year training courses at the Military Institute of Military Conductors of the
Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Since 2004, an agreement with the
Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan has been in place, under which five conductors a year were prepared for the band, which gave it the opportunity to replenish all bands with qualified personnel. Since 2019, it was decided to send musicians to study in
military schools in order to receive the education of a full-fledged conductor. Citizens of a pre-draft age, as well as male citizens and military personnel who have passed or are undergoing compulsory military service whose age does not exceed 23 years can take part in admission to military schools. Sixty percent of the band are contract soldiers, with the rest being military conscripts. == Ceremonial repertoire ==