"Nvak" in Armenian means music.

Last year, Armenian singer/songwriter Tamar Kaprelian assembled a team that included Ben Moody (Evanescence) and Andrew Fox (AMDA) to start the ​NVAK Foundation, a music education nonprofit focusing on building a self-sustaining music scene in Armenia. The organization's basic ethos is to train young musicians to be self-sufficient in terms of vocal technique, songwriting, and studio production, so they can develop and highlight the unique musical culture of the region.



With a unique proprietary curriculum, the NVAK Foundation is building a program that is scaleable to other developing countries.

"In The Mirror" by Sanahin Papazian from NVAK 2016

Produced by Ben Moody, Video Produced by TUMO


The flagship NVAK program is housed at TUMO, a free, creative after-school activities center in Yerevan, Armenia, that teaches "maker" skills, such as 3D printing, web design, film, and animation.  

At TUMO, technology and art merge to provide teens with a competitive edge in a digital world.

CEO of TUMO Marie Lou Papazian told Al Jazeera, "Armenia has been changing quite fast, but you can still feel the legacy and the luggage that came from the Soviet Union and its past. When I moved to Armenia, I realised that the Armenian educational system was lacking the creativity, the flexibility, the problem-solving part, and there is a big need to link education with technology to be able to develop a new generation of competitive Armenians."

TUMO Center For Creative Technologies

It is no secret that art education is underfunded, and that programs such as Nvak are non-existent in developing countries. That is why making quality art education available in countries that do not have the proper resources is so important.

"At TUMO, you choose what classes you want, and, based on that, you go to workshops that you love; it's really different," a student says. "You are more free here than at school. In TUMO, you don't have grades and it's OK if you fail. You learn from failure. But at school, if you fail its bad."

Currently, the Nvak Foundation is about 75 percent of its way toward its fundraising goal thanks to TUMO, AGBU, Atlantic Records, and Hovnanian Foundation. 

You can find out more and donate HERE!

Keep up with this year's Nvak program currently going on now with daily Instagram stories and @NvakFoundation on Facebook and Twitter


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