by Bruce Eder
Lusine Zakarian (also credited as Lucineh Zakaryan) was a singer from Soviet Georgia. Of Armenian descent, she was born Svetlana Zakaryan in 1937, in Akhaltsikhe, and raised in the southern part of Soviet Georgia. The family moved to Yerevan when she was in her teens, and she later studied at the Yerevan State Musical Conservatory. In addition to operatic repertory, she sang traditional Armenian songs. It was with the latter repertory that she first emerged on records in the West, with the album Lucineh Zakaryan: The Nightingale of Armenia, a collection of traditional songs and hymns released by the Tekeyan Cultural Association in the early '60s. She also sang in many formal concerts, and from 1970 through 1983 she was a soloist with the symphony orchestra of Soviet-run Armenian TV and Radio.