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After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia entered a period of profound transformation. Much of the public memory of the 1990s remains dominated by the dreaded “cold and dark years” of blockade, economic collapse, energy shortages and uncertainty. Yet alongside those hardships, the country’s cultural landscape was also quietly changing. While music in particular began to evolve under the conditions of newfound freedom, it however remains one of the least examined aspects of Armenia’s post-Soviet transition, its transformations largely absent from broader historical narratives.

Classical music, long anchored in the traditions and discipline of the Soviet conservatory system, was one of the few cultural spheres to preserve a sense of continuity after independence. “I remember those winter-time concerts, which were often accompanied by the annoying background noise coming from the heaters,” recalls Artur Avanesov, composer and lecturer at the American University of Armenia, evoking the sensory struggle of the time. Despite the collapsing infrastructure around them, classical musicians who rose to prominence during Soviet times continued to uphold rigorous standards and performance culture they had inherited and as Avanesov notes, “…they maintained the standards of their playing, maintained the culture.”

As the rigid rules that once governed nearly every aspect of life began to loosen, Armenia’s musical landscape slowly opened to outside influences and international exchange. “I remember some composers coming, some whose names I wasn’t familiar with, who later turned out to be very, very serious and important composers,” recalls Avanesov. Some passed through as adventurers exploring newly accessible post-Soviet spaces, bringing with them musical styles and ideas that were quite different from what locals were used to hearing.

Despite the economic hardships of the period, concert life remained surprisingly vibrant. According to Avanesov, there were more accessible concerts then than today, performances where people could attend simply for the joy of listening to music. The Armenian Philharmonic continued organizing concerts, while conductor and composer Loris Tjeknavorian staged large-scale orchestral performances that were either free or nearly free to the public and drew large audiences. “Classical music didn’t need to be revived; it needed to be preserved,” says vocal coach Davit Stepanyan, former assistant to the beloved singer-songwriter Hayko. Popular music, estrada, by contrast, was only beginning to reinvent itself in the new post-Soviet reality.

Alongside classical music, rabiz and folk music took center stage. While folk music survived largely through the dedication of its performers and supporters, rabiz, a distinctly Armenian style of popular music blending folk influences with synthesizer-driven dance melodies, rapidly evolved into the country’s most commercially successful and culturally visible genre. Though its roots stretched back to the 1980s, rabiz reached its peak in the turbulent years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Avanesov describes the era as the “grunge era of rabiz,” comparing it to the raw, unpolished energy of American teenagers playing rock in their garages and calling it grunge for its “dirty” sound. It was music shaped less by refinement than by immediacy, emotion and survival.

Rabiz music was already well established as a genre by the 1980s. Stepanyan attributes its popularity to a proven formula: adaptation rather than experimentation. Instead of producing entirely original material, many performers borrowed or reworked songs that had already proven popular in neighboring countries. “If you create 100 songs from scratch, maybe only one becomes successful,” he explains, adding that if you take songs that audiences elsewhere already love, most of them will work. The strategy offered a degree of certainty in an unstable cultural and economic environment.

As the restrictions that had constrained artistic production during the Soviet period disappeared, Armenia’s music scene diversified. Rabiz may have resonated because it was easily digestible and familiar; songs about heartbreak, longing and hardship spoke to a society living through a grueling period. But it was not the only musical force shaping the era. Institutions such as the Armenian State Song Theater continued producing a very different kind of music, preserving alternative artistic traditions alongside rabiz’s growing popularity.

“Stylistically, the music they were producing was fresh and more modern, echoing the sounds of the West: jazz, pop, and soul,” Stepanyan explains. “But even then, we were trying to infuse it with our own voice, add our own colors.” Compared to rabiz, the audience for this modern mix of sounds was quite small, though it carried an air of prestige. This was partly because they had the means to broadcast that lent the genre cultural legitimacy. Despite its limited commercial reach, Stepanyan says a core group of serious artists and musicians remained committed to developing and sustaining it.

“There were a lot of mixes with a touch of this or that,” Avanesov recalls, “essentially a fusion of Armenian and something else, paving the way for artists such as Tigran Hamasyan to enter the scene.” These “mixes” were labeled progressive, a term that became almost synonymous with experimentation itself. In the aftermath of decades of cultural rigidity and ideological control, simply sounding different, blending Armenian traditions with unfamiliar genres, techniques or aesthetics, was often enough to be considered progressive.

As Armenia’s music scene evolved, the opening of borders also made migration possible, and many musicians were among those who left. Some sought greater creative opportunities abroad; others simply could no longer sustain themselves within the country’s collapsing economy. “Classical music can never be created in a vacuum,” Avanesov says, a sentiment that extended far beyond classical music alone. Armenia’s cultural transformation was inseparable from the broader political and social upheaval the country was experiencing. However, there was no time to mourn what could have been; along the way, pop music began entering the scene, along with other genres that were unusual for the Armenian industry, such as hip-hop.

By the early 2000s, the transformation was impossible to ignore: a newly released classical album could be announced in the same newspaper column as an emerging rap artist’s debut. What once might have seemed unimaginable had become ordinary. Armenia’s music scene, like the country itself, had become fragmented, hybrid and unpredictable, but also unmistakably alive.

May’s issue of SALT is a mix of nostalgia and gumption. From the evolution of Armenia’s post-Soviet music scene to the history of Armenian bridal fashion, from a photo story capturing the outdoor games children still play to reflections on the life of Armenian radio, and the story of one man helping revive forgotten vines, these pieces explore memory, identity, creativity and resilience in all their different forms.