AGBU Announces One-Night-Only All-Star Entertainment Event to Cap its 94th General Assembly Weekend this October

NEW YORK — As part of a series of events surrounding AGBU’s 94th General Assembly weekend in Montreal, Canada, an unprecedented multi-genre, multimedia entertainment event called LEGACY has been organized by AGBU Arts in collaboration with People of Ar Productions.

The highly anticipated and ambitious concert and immersive visual experience will take place on Saturday October 17, 2026, at 8:00 PM at Montreal’s landmark Outremont Theatre. Its box office is now open for ticket purchases and selling quickly to the overall Armenian community and general audiences alike. With its international line up of established and popular Armenian talents, representing music, dance, and the visual arts, LEGACY promises to captivate audiences of all generations and cultural affinities.

AGBU Arts Director Hayk Arsenyan states: “For 120 years, AGBU has been creating opportunities for Armenians around the world and helping keep our culture and heritage alive. That’s something that has always been important to AGBU. With LEGACY, we’re bringing that idea to the stage by bringing together incredible musicians, dancers, and artists from different generations. Each of them brings their own story and helps keep a piece of Armenian culture alive for the next generation.”

Featured Performers
Among the evening’s headliners is Sebu Simonian, singer, songwriter, and keyboardist best known as one-half of the duo Capital Cities, whose hit “Safe and Sound” reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned a Grammy nomination. Raised within the Armenian community of Los Angeles, Simonian has also collaborated with Armenian singer Sirusho. Also appearing is Emmanuel Hovhannisyan, regarded as one of the most accomplished musicians in Armenia. He serves as first duduk player at the Armenian State Orchestra of National Instruments and lead duduk player at the Gurdjieff Folk Instruments Ensemble, with which he contributed to The Voice of George Gurdjieff, released by ECM Records to wide critical acclaim.

From New York comes Kevork Mourad, a painter and video artist born in Syria. His animated and live visuals have been performed at world-renowned venues including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Aga Khan Museum, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the Dutch Royal Palace, and his work holds a place in the permanent collections of Paris’ Institut du Monde Arabe and the Aga Khan Museum. A longtime member of the Silkroad Ensemble and recipient of a 2023 New York State Council on the Arts grant, Mourad has exhibited internationally and recently drew wide attention for his large-scale piece at Miami Art Basel in December 2025.

Rounding out the diverse program are acclaimed pop singer Inga Arshakyan; the Serouj Kradjian Band; cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan; soprano Armine Vardanyan; oboist Hayk Hekekyan; the Navasard Folk Project; the AGBU Montreal Garni Dance Ensemble; and the AGBU Stars Children’s Choir, among others.

Arshakyan brings a distinctive blend of Armenian, classical, and contemporary influences to the program. She trained in violin at Yerevan’s Arno Babajanyan Music College before studying jazz vocals at the Komitas State Conservatory. Alongside her sister Anush, with whom she has performed since childhood, Inga represented Armenia at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009 after winning the national final. The duo has since performed across Armenia, the U.S., Iran, and Europe.

Also featured is cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan, who at just 22 won First Prize and Gold Medal at the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition and has since become one of the world’s most sought-after musicians, praised by the LA Times for his “extraordinary” command of the instrument. An Honored Artist of Armenia, he has performed with the Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, among many others.

Tickets to LEGACY, priced between $50 – $150 CAD, are sold directly through The Outremont Theatre box office at https://theatreoutremont.tuxedobillet.com/web/legacy.

AGBU 94th General Assembly
LEGACY is a fitting finale to what promises to be an extraordinary AGBU General Assembly which, this year, coincides with the 120^th Anniversary of the organization—the world’s largest Armenian non-profit with a remarkable legacy of its own. Known and trusted throughout the Armenian world, AGBU has made culture preservation and arts promotion key components of its timeless mission to uplift Armenian lives worldwide.

The AGBU Montreal community, one of the most active in North America, was chosen for its accessibility to a global membership that will take part in private meetings, conferences, the official proceedings of the AGBU Central Board, as well as a panel discussion by APRI (Applied Policy Research Institute of Armenia) and a 120th Anniversary celebratory Cocktail Reception.

For more information about the 94^th AGBU General Assembly weekend, go to agbu.org/GA