French Armenian singing legend Rosy Armen celebrates the 81s birthday today. Born in Paris, Rosy Hohannessian Armen has been singing since age four.
Despite her parents being against her career in singing, Rosy Hohannessian, later Rosy Bedrossian continued on with her passion and eventually, took the stage name Rosy Armen.
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.
In 1970, she took part in the selection rounds for representing Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest, but Julio Iglesias was selected to represent the country.
She has performed in the best music theaters of France, including Olympia in Paris. She has also performed at Waldorf Astoria in New York, at 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 the song “Pour toi Arménie” along with a number of other artists, a song that remained in 1st place for 10 weeks in a row in the French Top 50. In 1990, she toured Armenia to help people recovering from the earthquake and to show France’s support to Armenians.
In April 2014, she was honored with the “Armenian Music Award.” In December 2014, during a new ceremony, Rosy Armen received further recognition with “International Music Award” at the Moscow Kremlin, for singing in different languages including Armenian.
During MIDEM 2015 Gala in Cannes, as Armenia was commemorating the centennial of the 1915 genocide, Rosy Armen was honored with an Order of Honor.
