Death of Edward Mirzoyan (October 5, 2012)

Composer Edward Mirzoyan was a noted name in the music of Soviet Armenia and president of the Composers Union for more than three decades. He was born in Gori, Georgia, on May 12, 1921. His stepfather was composer Mikayel Mirzayan (1888-1958).

Mirzoyan later moved to Armenia and graduated in 1941 from the creative section of the Yerevan Conservatory. By that time he had already composed his first works, including two popular songs based on Avetik Isahakian’s poems, “They Say That…” and “Dream.” He served in the Soviet army from March-November 1942, organizing army ensembles of songs and dances. From 1946-48 he continued his studies at the musical studio of the House of Armenian Culture in Moscow. Returning to Yerevan, he taught at his alma mater from 1948 onwards, becoming a full professor in 1965.

From 1950-1952 he was executive secretary of the Composers Union of Armenia and its president from 1956-1991, becoming honorary president in 1994, and president of the Peace Fund of Armenia from 1977-2009 (honorary president in 2009). He toured the United States and Canada in 1963. In the same year he earned the title of Popular Artist of Soviet Armenia, one among various awards and honorific titles he received throughout his life.

He wrote songs based on poems by Avetik Isahakian and Yeghishe Charents. Some of his works were characterized by their dynamism, such as “Symphonic Dances,” “Festive Prelude,” “Introduction and Perpetuum Mobile” (for violin and orchestra). His “String Quartet” is one of the interesting words of Armenian chamber music. His cantatas, like “Armenia,” “Festive,” and others, are suffused with patriotic spirit. He contributed several symphonic works of particular value such as the sonata for cello and piano” and the symphony for string orchestra and timpani. He also wrote “Album for My Grandchild,” “Poem for Piano,” “Poem-Epitaph for Chamber Orchestra,” and other works.

Mirzoyan has also written the music of several Armenian movies, such as Collapse (1959), Chaos (1974), The President of the Revolutionary Committee (1977), Exile No. 11 (1979), and The Pharmacy at the Corner (1988), and the documentary Today Is a Sunny Day (1975).

Some of Mirzoyan’s students were famous composers like Jivan Ter-Tadevosian, Constantine Orbelian, Avet Terterian, Vache Sharafian, Khachatur Avetisian, Robert Amirkhanian, and others.

Mirzoyan passed away in Yerevan, on October 5, 2012, at the age of ninety-one. He was buried at the Komitas Pantheon. The House of Composers of Dilijan was named after him 2013.

Death of Nigoghos Tashjian (September 9, 1885)

Nigoghos Tashjian is not a familiar name when we speak of Armenian religious music, but we owe to him the use of modern notation to transcribe the ancient hymns and songs. In this way, those pieces were rescued from becoming undecipherable for modern musicians and musicologists.

Tashjian was born in Constantinople on June 17, 1841. He studied at the Nersesian School of Haskeuy, where he was a student of Kapriel Yeranian (author of the music for the song “Guiliguia”).

In the 1860s Tashjian was involved in the publication of several music journals. First, he published a semi-annual journal called Nvak osmanian (“Ottoman Melody”), with his brother Hagopig Tashjian, and then he joined his teacher Yeranian to publish another periodical, Knar Arevelian (“Oriental Lyre”). In 1863 Tashjian, Vartan Papazian, and composer Tigran Chuhajian (the author of the first Armenian opera, “Arshag II”) published together yet another music journal, Osmanian yerazhshdutiun (“Ottoman Music”). All three journals were printed in lithography (from a stone plate, hence the name) and included Armenian and Turkish songs.

Tashjian printed interesting articles in the Armenian press of Constantinople, and in 1871 he was invited to Holy Echmiadzin to teach music at the Kevorkian Seminary, where future composer Makar Yekmalian was his student. Three years later, he published his Textbook of Armenian Ecclesiastic Notation , where he first explained the notation system of his predecessor Hampartzum Limonjian, and he later presented the nature and a brief history of Armenian music.

His most important service to Armenian music would be, as we said, the use of modern notation to transcribe religious songs and hymns, trying to maintain the authentic meaning of the ancient Armenian khaz (neumes). By the second half of the nineteenth century, the key to the khaz was lost and there was nobody left to sing them accurately. This is why various authors, like Limonjian and Tashjian, tried to “translate” them into modern notation. Tashjian published four books of transcribed songs in Holy Echmiadzin: Songbook of the Divine Liturgy (1874); Songbook of Armenian Liturgical Hymns (1875); Songs with Notation of the Book of Hours of the Armenian Holy Church (1877), and Excerpts of Blessings with Notation (1882).

    

In 1879 he returned to Constantinople, where he taught music at various schools and was the choirmaster at the Armenian Cathedral of Constantinople. He was also the author of various patriotic songs, which Yekmalian and Gomidas Vartabed later arranged for polyphonic version.

Tashjian passed away in Constantinople on September 9, 1885, at the age of forty-four, but his legacy would outlive him and become a stepping stone for his successors in the field of Armenian religious music.

Birth of Kourken Alemshah (May 22, 1907)

Kourken Alemshah was a well-established, even if prematurely disappeared Armenian composer of the Diaspora in the first half of the past century.

He was born in Bardizag (now Bahcecik), an Armenian village near Izmit, in Western Turkey, on May 22, 1907. He studied at the Mekhitarist School in the neighborhood of Pera (now Beyoglu), in Constantinople, and graduated in 1918. Afterwards, he entered the Moorat-Raphael (Mourad-Raphaelian) School of the Mekhitarist Congregation in Venice, graduating in 1923. He had already shown his talent as a pianist at school, and he pursued musical studies at the Milan Conservatory. His professors saw in him an exceptional talent, unique inspiration, and the ability to mix Oriental music and popular motifs to European technique.

Alemshah graduated in 1930 and settled in Paris, where he taught at the Samuel-Moorat (Samuel Mouradian) school of the Mekhitarists in the suburb of Sevres, as well as in Italian high schools. Along his prolific labor as composer, he also organized the “Cilicia” choir, which became a well-known choir in the big Armenian community of France. In 1933, at the age of twenty-six, he was elected member of the Association of Musical Authors, Composers, and Editors of France. In the 1930s, he composed many works of European inspiration under the pseudonym of Jean Valdonne.

It was particularly impressive a concert of the “Cilicia” choir he directed in 1934 at Salle Gaveau, in Paris, with more than 1,000 people in the audience. Along works by Komitas, he premiered his “Oriental Nights,” composed in 1931 and the vocal-orchestral work “The Battle of Avarayr” (1934). In 1936, on the centennial of his alma mater, the Moorat-Raphael School, he took his choir to Venice and gave concerts both in the famed hall of the school and the St. Mark Square, presenting Komitas songs and his own songs on popular motifs. In 1937 his work “Armenian Wedding,” a combination of Alemshah’s music with popular songs, won the second prize at the international competition of People’s Music, with the participation of twenty nations.

He later conducted the choir “Alakiaz” from 1938-1939, and was appointed conductor of the Sipan Komitas choir from 1939 until his death. He conducted Armen Tigranian’s “Anoush” opera and the performances of the Divine Liturgy in a number of French cathedrals.



In the fall of 1947, Alemshah visited the United States for a series of presentations. In October he conducted a concert at Town Hall in New York City, devoted to Armenian orchestral and choral music. He passed away unexpectedly on December 14, 1947, in Detroit, from a heart attack, a day before his scheduled performance. His funeral was held in New York by the Armenian Catholic clergy, with the participation of the choir of St. Illuminator’s Cathedral. His body was sent to France and buried in Paris.

Some of his vocal scores were published in Paris in 1947. His songs, which are still part of musical programs, are characterized by rare emotional intensity.

Death of Alexander Arutiunian (March 28, 2012)

Alexander Arutiunian was born in Yerevan, in the family of Grigor and Eleonora Arutiunian, on September 23, 1920. His father was a military serviceman. He entered the Yerevan State Conservatory’s children’s group in 1927 and was admitted in 1934 to the Conservatory, from which he graduated on the eve of World War II. He wrote his first work, “Impromptu,” for cello and piano, in 1941. After the war he moved to Moscow , where he participated in the workshops of the House of Armenian Culture from 1946-1948 and studied at the Moscow Conservatory, graduating in 1948.

In 1949 Arutiunian was awarded the Stalin Prize for his cantata “Motherland,” a graduation piece he wrote as a student at the Moscow Conservatory. In the same year, he composed the “Festive Overture.” In 1950 he coauthored “Armenian Rhapsody” with Arno Babajanian. He married Irina (Tamara) Odenova and had two children.



He returned to Yerevan and from 1954 to 1991 was the artistic director of the Armenian State Philarmonia. He continued to win acclaim for his works, many of which were inspired by the folk traditions of Armenian music, including the vocal symphonic poem “The Legend about the Armenian People” (1961). In the 1960s he tended towards classical forms and clearer tonality.

Arutiunian wrote a total of thirteen concerts for different instruments, of which the 1950 concert for trumpet made him known in the United States. He composed his concerto for violin and string orchestra “Armenia-88,” inspired by the Spitak earthquake, in 1988.

 He also wrote the opera “Sayat-Nova,” using some of the songs of the great troubadour (1968), the song-cantata “With My Fatherland,” based on the poems of Hovhannes Tumanian (1969), and the vocal series “Monument to My Mother,” based on the poems of Hovhannes Shiraz (1969). 

His prolific production included music for theater and cinema, with the films “The Heart Sings” (coauthored with Konstantin Orbelian, 1956) and “Nahapet” (1977), among others. 

In 1962 he was awarded the title of People’s Artist of Armenia and in 1970 he became People’s Artist of the USSR. Also in 1970 he started teaching at the Komitas Conservatory (Yerevan State Conservatory). He received the title of professor in 1977 and would continue working until 2008. After independence, he was decorated with several medals and orders. In 1987 he was awarded the title of honorary citizen of Yerevan.

He continued producing until his last years. His last work was the “Children’s Album” for piano (2004).

He passed away on March 28, 2012, in Yerevan, and was buried at the Komitas Pantheon.

Birth of Arno Babajanian (January 22, 1921)

Arno Babajanian was one of the most important composers of Soviet Armenia, but also was very well-known in the Soviet Union, especially as a brilliant pianist.

He was born in Yerevan on January 22, 1921. His childhood friend, composer Alexander Harutiunian, recalled that at the age of five or six, the future musician attempted to play the old piano of the kindergarten. Babajanian himself used to tell about his first meeting with Aram Khachatourian: “When I was a kindergartener, a man once visited us and asked us to sing to get to know who had music ear among us. I was singing and kicking the floor at the same time. Listening to me, that man said that I should be engaged in music. In the future, I would learn that he was Aram Khachatourian.”

Afterwards, in 1929 Babajanian entered the musical school attached to the Conservatory of Yerevan (now called after Gomidas). In 1930 he wrote his first composition, the “March of the Pioneers,” which poet Yeghishe Charents helped publish. In 1947 he graduated from the Gomidas State Conservatory and the next year he also graduated from the class of piano of the Tchaikovsky State Conservatory of Moscow. Meanwhile, from 1946-1948 he perfected his studies at the studio attached to the House of Culture of Armenia in Moscow. He became a remarkable pianist, who was famous for the interpretations of his own works. Returning to Armenia, Babajanian taught at the Gomidas State Conservatory from 1950 to 1956. Afterwards, he settled in Moscow, where he would live and work until the end of his life.

His natural talent and his vivid musical images turned him into a well-known representative of Soviet music. Babajanian’s style in his formative years was influenced by Aram Khachaturian and Sergei Rachmaninoff, as reflected in his early compositions, the concerts for piano (1944) and violin with orchestra (1949). His monumental “Heroic Ballad” for piano and orchestra (1950) earned him the State Prize of the Soviet Union in 1951, when he was just thirty, showing the main lines of his creative personality along his trio for piano (1952). In 1950 he composed with A. Harutiunian the widely popular “Armenian Rhapsody.” Dramatic contrasts and dynamic musical language characterized his sonata for violin and piano (1959) and the concerto for cello (1962). Many of his piano compositions, such as “Elegy” and “Dance of Vagharshapat,” are frequently chosen by Armenian pianists throughout the world. In 1960 Babajanian received the title of People’s Artist of Armenia and eleven years later he became People’s Artist of the USSR. He won the State Prize of Armenia in 1966 for his innovative composition “Six Images” (1965).



The composer was a very eclectic artist, as he worked in various genres: classical, pop, and jazz. He collaborated with some of the most celebrated Russian poets at the time, like Evgeny Yevdushenko, Andrei Voznesensky, and Robert Rozhdestvensky, but he also composed pop and jazz songs in Armenian, which were very popular at the time. He wrote the music for William Saroyan’s play “My Heart is in the Highlands,” as well as for many celebrated Armenian films: “By the Path of the Storm” (1956), “I Know You Personally” (1957), “The Song of the First Love” (1958, with Ghazaros Sarian as coauthor), “The Bride from the North” (1975), “The Mechanics of Happiness” (1982, State Prize of Armenia in 1983), and others.

Arno Babajanian passed away in Moscow on November 11, 1983. A street in the Armenian capital remembers him, and his statue has been placed near Swan Lake, in central Yerevan.

Birth of Romanos Melikian (October 1, 1883)

In the constellation of Armenian musicians from the first half of the twentieth century, between names like Gomidas Vartabed, Aram Khachatourian, Alexander Spendiarian, Parsegh Ganachian, and others, Romanos Melikian appears as a less shining star.

He was born on October 1, 1883, in the city of Kizlyar, in the region of Daghestan (Northern Caucasus). He received his primary education in the parochial school, and continued his studies at the diocesan school of Nor Nakhichevan, where his first music teacher was Kevork Chorekjian (the future Catholicos of All Armenians Kevork VI). In 1900, at the age of seventeen, he became the choirmaster of the church of Surp Kevork in Nor Nakhichevan. He graduated in 1902 and went to study at the musical school of Rostov. In those years, he had already arranged Armenian popular songs and liturgical hymns for choir. In 1905 he left for Moscow and, after a year of private classes, he was admitted to the Popular Conservatory and directed the choir of the Lazarian Institute.

Poor health and financial constraints forced Melikian to leave his education unfinished and return to Nor Nakhichevan. He then went to Tiflis, where he took a position as a music teacher at the Hovnanian School from 1908-1910. He gathered young musicians working within the local Armenian schools and created the Musical League in 1908 with composer Azat Manoukian. He continued composing songs for schools, using popular motifs.

He returned to school in 1910 and studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory until 1914. He went back to Tiflis in 1915 and continued teaching. He had his first authorial concert in 1920, at the age of thirty-seven. A year later, the government of Soviet Armenia invited him to Yerevan to found a musical studio, which became a conservatory two years later. In 1924 he went to Stepanakert, the new capital of Karabagh, and founded a music school, and then went back to Tiflis, where he led the activities of the musical section and the musical school of the Armenian Art House (Hayartun).

Romanos Melikian returned to Yerevan in 1926, where he established friendly relations with Spendiarian. He participated in the work of staging Spendiarian’s celebrated opera Almast and in the foundation of the Opera of Yerevan in 1933. He raised the issue of gathering Gomidas’ musical heritage in Armenia.



Composer, musician, and educator, Melikian continued producing songs until the end of his days. Some of them are still part of the repertoire of soloists and choirs. He passed away on March 30, 1935, in Tiflis, and was buried in the Pantheon of Yerevan. One of the musical schools of Yerevan is named after him, as well as streets in Yerevan and other cities of Armenia. 

Death of Armenag Shahmuradian (September 14, 1939)

Opera singer Armenag Shahmouradian, labeled “the Armenian Caruso,” was one of the most famous representatives of the musical current embodied by Gomidas Vartabed.



He was born in Mush on April 7, 1878 in the family of a blacksmith. He entered the church choir at the age of eight, while he continued studying at the local school. However, the death of his father interrupted his studies due to lack of resources. The intervention of Bishop Nerses Kharakhanian, prelate of Mush, was providential. He sent the young boy to study at the seminary of the famous convent of Surp Garabed. The new student could not adapt himself to the atmosphere of the convent and returned to Mush pretty soon. This time, the bishop sent him to Echmiadzin with a letter of recommendation. The future singer was admitted to the Kevorkian Seminary, where he had writers Avetik Isahakian and Derenik Demirjian, and musician Grigor Suny among his classmates.

Shahmouradian became soloist in the choir of noted composer Kristapor Kara-Murza, who was a music teacher at the seminary. His extraordinary voice and highly qualified interpretation attracted the attention of Kara-Murza’s replacement, the young Gomidas Vartabed, who took the youngster under his wings. Shahmuradian developed as a singer and musician under Gomidas’ supervision for the next year and a half.

However, he was soon expelled from the seminary for having participated in a student protest against the conservative and retrograde methods applied there. Thanks to the intervention of Catholicos Mgrdich I (Khrimian Hayrig), Western Armenian students like Shahmouradian were admitted to the Nersesian Lyceum in Tiflis to continue their studies. There, he attracted the attention of Makar Ekmalian, the music teacher. He graduated in 1896 and participated in a wave of protests in Tiflis against the savagery of the regime of Abdul Hamid in the Ottoman Empire. He was arrested by the Russian police, sent to the prison of Metekh, and then, as an Ottoman subject, delivered to the Turkish government. He remained in the prison of Kars for eight months. His voice went through the walls of the prison and reached Turkish consul Fuad bey, who sent him to Mush as a free exile.

After two years teaching at the seminary of Surp Garabed, Shahmouradian moved to Erzerum, where he taught music, Armenian language, and Armenian history for four years at the local school, where he also created and directed a choir. Through the intervention of the school authorities, he obtained a Lebanese passport with the pretext of going there for medical reasons. However, he embarked on a French ship and went to Paris instead of Beirut in 1904. In the French capital, he studied for two years with world-famous singer Paulina Viardot, and afterwards he entered the Conservatory of Paris.

In January 1911 Shahmouradian debuted at the Grand Opera of Paris with the role of Faust in Charles Gounod’s homonymous opera. The performance was so successful that, at the request of the press and music aficionados, it continued for a month. In 1912-1913 he toured in Cairo, Tiflis, Constantinople, Baku, and other cities with a repertory of Armenian traditional and popular songs. He moved to the United States in 1914, where he gave concerts in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, and Fresno, and later performed in Europe (London, Manchester, Brussels, Antwerp, Geneva, Zurich) and Asia (Tehran, Baghdad, Calcutta). He recorded many of his songs in 78 rpm records that became a fixture in Armenian homes around the world.

In 1930 Shahmouradian, in precarious health and equally precarious finances, returned to Europe and settled in Paris. Here, he went to see his great master, Gomidas, who was already at the psychiatric clinic of Villejuif. He sang Armenia, Paradise Land (Հայաստան, երկիր դրախտավայր), one of his classical interpretations, and for a few moments Gomidas reacted and recognized his beloved disciple. And that was all.

Like his teacher, Shahmouradian, who had earned the label of “nightingale of Daron,” also passed away in the clinic of Villejuif on September 14, 1939. William Saroyan, who devoted a poem to him, four decades later wrote in Obituaries : “Shah-Mouradian was one of the truly great tenor-baritones of all time, somewhat like John McCormack, a star in Paris and New York, and around the world in opera.”

Death of Parsegh Ganachian (May 21, 1967)

The best known of Gomidas Vartabed’s “five disciples” and an accomplished composer and choirmaster himself, Parsegh Ganachian is also known as the author of the arrangement for the Armenian national anthem “Mer Hayrenik.”

He was born in Rodosto (Oriental Thrace, today in Turkey) on April 17, 1885. He was the son of a shoemaker, and at the age of three, his family moved to Constantinople, where he received his primary education at the elementary school of Gedikpasha. During the massacres of 1896, the Ganachians moved to Varna, in Bulgaria, where the young Parsegh continued his studies at the local Armenian school and studied music theory, violin, and conducting with violinist Nathan Bey Amirkhanian. The family moved again in 1905, this time to Bucharest (Romania), where Ganachian continued his studies of violin and he also took upon piano studies with composer Georges Bouyouk.

After the restoration of the Ottoman Constitution in 1908, Ganachian returned to Constantinople, where he founded the first Armenian orchestra, “Knar.” His encounter with Gomidas in December 1910 and the concert of the 300-strong “Kusan” choir in early 1911 were crucial for his career. He entered Gomidas choir. The great musician selected eighteen members of the choir as his students, and the number gradually diminished to five, of which one of them was Ganachian.

The future composer was drafted by the Ottoman army in World War I and played in the military orchestra until he was exiled to Diarbekir, where he fell gravely ill. He was sent to Aleppo, and he was there when the armistice was signed in November 1918. Along with other surviving intellectuals, Ganachian gathered young people and organized concerts to the benefit of the exiles, creating a wave of enthusiasm in the audiences. At that time, he composed the “Volunteer March” (Կամաւորական քայլերգ / Gamavoragan kaylerk), better known as “Harach, Nahadag” by the first words of its lyrics, written by poet Kevork Garvarentz. He later went to Cilicia, where he also gave concerts, and then returned to Constantinople.

In the Ottoman capital, the Gomidas students organized a group and presented concerts, created a Gomidas Fund and published Gomidas’ works in three songbooks. They also organized choirs and dealt with the education of the new generation. Ganachian composed his well known “Lullaby” (Օրօր /Oror) for soloist and choir.

The Gomidas’ students were sent to Paris to continue their musical education. Going to the French capital in 1921, Ganachian followed the courses of famous composer René Lenormand (1846-1932). Between 1922 and 1932 he toured Aleppo, Egypt, and Cyprus, forming choirs and giving choral concerts. From 1926-1930 he also taught music at the Melkonian Educational Institute. In 1932 he settled in Beirut, teaching at the College Armenien or Jemaran (later the Neshan Palandjian College). In 1933 he organized and directed the choir “Kusan,” which achieved great success in both Armenian and Lebanese circles from 1933-1946. The choir also had presentations in other Lebanese and Syrian cities, as well as in Egypt. It continued its activities until 1961.

Ganachian maintained and promoted the musical principles enunciated by Gomidas, deeply entrenched in national roots. He composed 25 choral songs and orchestral fragments, as well as around 20 songs for children. He also arranged Armenian and Arabic folk songs. Among his most important compositions are the opera “The Monk,” with Levon Shant’s play The Ancient Gods as its libretto, and the cantata “Nanor,” which depicts the pilgrimage to the monastery of St. Garabed in Moush. He also produced arrangements for the Armenian anthem, as well as the Lebanese and Syrian national anthems (1936).

Ganachian lost his sight in 1945, but his choir continued its performances. His works were partly published in Beirut and Yerevan. Among other awards, he was awarded the National Order of the Cedar (1957) by the Lebanese government for his achievements in the cultural life of Lebanon. 

The composer passed away on May 21, 1967, in Beirut. The Armenian cultural association Hamazkayin established an arts institute carrying his name in Lebanon. An art school also bears Ganachian’s name in Yerevan.

Birth of Grikor Suni (September 10, 1876)

Coming from a family of musicians, Grikor Suni was a relevant name in Armenian music in the beginning of the twentieth century, and had an important activity in the United States during the last two decades of his life.

Grikor Mirzaian Suni was born on September 10, 1876, in the village of Getabek, in the region of Gandzak (nowadays Ganja, in Azerbaijan). At the age of two, he and his family moved to Shushi, the capital of Gharabagh. He enrolled in 1883 in a parish school and lost his father in the same year.

He studied from 1891-1895 at the Gevorgian Seminary of Etchmiadzin, where he was a classmate of Gomidas Vartabed, whom he befriended. After graduation, he organized a polyphonic choir and gave a concert of popular songs collected and arranged by him.

After pursuing private lesson in St. Petersburg from 1895-1898, he received a scholarship to attend the state conservatory, majoring in music theory and composition. He had two famed Russian composers, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov, among his teachers. Meanwhile, he was hired as choir director of the local Armenian church, and prepared arrangements of religious music. He graduated in 1904 and published a collection of popular songs in the same year.

In the late 1890s, Suni entered the ranks of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, where he remained until 1910. He composed the lyrics and music of the party’s anthem, Mshag panvor.

In 1905 Suni returned to the Caucasus, and taught music at the Nersisian School of Tiflis until 1908. In 1906 he wrote the operetta Aregnazan, based on lyrics of writer Ghazaros Aghayan, which was staged by the Armenian Theatrical Company of Tiflis.

In October 1908, fearing political persecution in Russia, Suni escaped to the Ottoman Empire with his family. He first settled in Trebizond (Trabzon), and organized concerts of Armenian choral and orchestral music in the region. In 1910 he moved to Erzerum, where he taught at the Sanasarian School during the next four years. He also continued collecting folk songs and dances, and organizing choirs.

At the breakout of World War I, the composer moved back to Tiflis, where he continued teaching and directing. He was also one of the founding members of the Society of Armenian Musicologists. After a sojourn in Tehran (1919-1920), he returned to Tiflis, but his poor health led him to move to Constantinople (1921), where he taught music and choral singing at several schools, and conducted a choir. Months after the Ottoman capital had been occupied by the Kemalist forces, in September 1923 Suni and his family arrived in the United States and settled in Philadelphia.

During the next decade and a half, the composer, who had adopted a pro-Soviet outlook as a result of his ideological affinities, participated actively in the artistic life of the Armenian American community, particularly on the East Coast. He also continued composing. A collection of choir music was published in Yerevan, in 1935.

Grikor Suni passed away in Philadelphia on December 18, 1939. Several fascicles containing songs by him were posthumously published in the 1940s in Philadelphia. One of his grandsons is historian Ronald Grigor Suny, professor of History at the University of Michigan.

Death of Spiriton Melikian (May 4, 1933)

It is usual to speak about Gomidas Vartabed’s five students, of which Parsegh Ganachian (the author of the arrangement for the Armenian anthem Mer Hayrenik) is the better known. However, his eldest student is frequently left in the shadows.

Spiriton Melikian was born in Vagharshapat on December 1, 1880. He lost his parents at an early age and lived with his paternal and maternal uncles. He entered the Kevorkian Seminary of the Holy See of Etchmiadzin in 1893 and soon became the focus of Gomidas’ attention. He followed on the traces of his teacher and dedicated himself to record popular songs. To that aim, he spent his summers in the villages of Etchmiadzin and Aparan.

In 1902 Melikian graduated from the seminary and was ordained a deacon. He worked for two years as a singing teacher and assistant to Gomidas in the direction of the seminary choir. After two years of work, he went to Berlin to continue his musical education, following his teacher’s advice. He studied at the private conservatory of Richard Schmidt. Gomidas warned him, however, not to follow the scholastic orientation that prevailed in German musicology at the time. To that end, he loaned him his huge collection of Armenian popular songs to copy and take with him. That providential decision saved the collection from complete loss. Melikian published the only extant copy of Gomidas’ collection in 1931.

In Berlin, he studied ancient and modern music history, cultivated his voice, and deepened his knowledge of choral art. He returned to Armenia and decided to dedicate himself exclusively to music. As a result, he severed his links with the Armenian Church and renounced his order of deacon. After a year teaching in Shushi (Karabagh), in 1909 he settled in Tiflis, becoming music teacher and choirmaster at the Nersessian School. In the same year, he published a small book, The Issue of Music Development among Us. He was particularly adamant about the need to dedicate space to Armenian popular songs in school programs.

In 1912 he founded the Armenian Musical Society of Tiflis that did prolific work in the promotion and collection of Armenian music during the early 20th century. Melikian and another musician, Anushavan Ter-Ghevondian, published a collection of folkloric music in 1916, The Songs of Shirak.

In 1921, after the sovietization of Armenia, Melikian moved first to Etchmiadzin and later to Yerevan in 1923. He became a professor of choral art at the newly founded Music Conservatory, and also taught theoretical subjects, and retrained teachers. He directed the 75-member choir of the conservatory, which also performed in Moscow.

In those years, Melikian continued collecting samples of folkloric music and publishing. He became a member of the Institute of Science and Art of the republic in 1926. He organized several campaigns in different areas of the republic from 1926-1932 and published two booklets of Armenian Popular Songs and studies on Gomidas Vartabed. He worked on a book, Outline of History of Armenian Music, posthumously published in 1935. It is said that he collected more than a thousand samples of Armenian song and dance melodies, becoming the most prolific in this field after Gomidas.

Spiriton Melikian became director of the State Conservatory from 1930-1933, and was rewarded with the title of Emeritus Art Worker of Armenia in 1933. He passed away shortly thereafter, on May 4, 1933, victim of cancer. He was buried at the Gomidas Pantheon in Yerevan.

Death of Hampartzum Limonjian (June 29, 1839)

Hampartzum Limonjian, better known by the sobriquet Baba Hampartzum, was one of the most important figures of Armenian music. He opened a new era in Armenian songs, as he cleaned them from foreign influences, and became the creator of the Armenian new musical notation, which helped maintain the heritage of popular and spiritual songs.

Limonjian was born in Constantinople in 1768. His childhood was marked by poverty. As soon as he had learned how to write and to read, he became an apprentice in a tailor shop and, after learning the trade, became a tailor himself.

He had an innate love for singing and music, and in his free time he devoted himself to learning music, and this is how he advanced in musicology. He later became a student of Zenne Boghos and learned Armenian religious music. He met Turkish dervishes and in a short time learned the style of their classical singing. The mystic teachings of the dervishes made a great impact on him, as well as their introspective life and their prayers that were accompanied by songs, music, and ritual dances.

Afterwards, Hampartzum Limonjian, who was already known as Baba Hampartzum, studied also European musical theory. His acquaintance with Hovhannes Chelebi Duzian became crucial. Hovhannes Chelebi, who was also a music lover, noted the exceptional abilities of Baba Hampartzum and had him hired as a music teacher in the Mekhitarist School of Constantinople. Simultaneously, he also worked as a scribe for the Balians, who were the imperial architects.

Once he assured his living, Baba Hampartzum strove to improve his musical knowledge. He took lessons from Greek musicians and maintained his links with the dervishes. He also studied old Armenian religious songs and tried to transcribe them. The European notation was not appropriate and he invented an Armenian notation system that resembled the khaz (the Armenian notation used in the Armenian hymns or sharagan) and corresponded to the European musical scale. He worked on his invention until 1815. In 1837 he wrote his autobiography, in Turkish, where he wrote about the motives that had led him to create the Armenian notation.

Hampartzum Limonjian had a group of students who continued his work, among them his son Nezen Zenob (1810-1866), Tamburi Alexan, Apisoghom Utudjian, Aristakes Hovhannesian, Bedros Cheomlekian and Hovhannes Muhendisian.

He passed away on June 29, 1839, at the age of 71. Decades later, Kevork IV, Catholicos of All Armenians, took the initiative to organize the teaching and the promotion of the notation system invented by Baba Hampartzum, which was particularly important in the maintenance and the normalization of Armenian religious music.

Birth of Alan Hovhaness (March 8, 1911)

Armenian American composer Alan Hovhaness is said to be one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century.

He was born Alan Vaness Chakmakjian in Somerville (Massachusetts), on March 8, 1911. His father, Haroutioun Chakmakjian (1878-1973), was a professor of chemistry at Tufts College and author of a popular English-Armenian dictionary, as well as onetime editor of Hairenik. His mother, Madeleine Scott, was of Scottish ancestry, and did not especially approve that he learned about Armenian culture from his father. Until her death in 1931, the composer would sign his earliest music as Alan Scott Vaness.

Alan Hovhaness was a precocious composer who already penned operas by age 14. After initial studies at Tufts College, he studied composition at the New England Conservatory of Music, in Boston. In the 1930s, he composed mostly chamber music in Western modes of expression.

He would shift to a fusion of Western and Eastern music in the 1940s, starting with his job as organist at St. James Armenian Church in Watertown, where he was exposed to the Armenian liturgy and the works of Komitas Vartabed. “It was through Komitas that I got the idea of saying as much as possible with the fewest possible notes,” he would write later. He got rid of most of his earliest music, and started anew to seek out his Armenian heritage. His “Armenian period” lasted from 1943 to 1951, and was benefited from the performances of important works and rave reviews in the mainstream press. The Friends of Armenian Music, a committee headed by pianist Maro Ajemian and her sister, violinist Anahid Ajemian, were instrumental in supporting him in various capacities. Maro Ajemian performed and recorded many of his works. 

Alan Hovhaness conducts the Ani Symphony.

Alan Hovhaness conducts the Ani Symphony at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on April 21, 1989, in one of several events sponsored by the Prelacy on the occasion of the 1000th anniversary of the Great Cathedral of Ani.

After a three-year stint at the Boston Music Conservatory (1948-1951), while he had married for the third time, Hovhaness gradually acquired considerable reputation. He received academic honors and a steady flow of commissions. He embarked on a more Western phase of writing and devoted himself to full-time composing. His Symphony No. 2 (Mysterious Mountain ) that premiered in 1955, brought him national recognition. MGM Records released 8 long-plays of all-Hovhaness records from 1955-1957. “Mysterious Mountain” was recorded in 1958 by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and became his most famous recording and most-performed orchestral work. To this day it is considered to be one of the best recordings ever made.

After a Fulbright research scholarship in India (1959-1960), Alan Hovhaness also visited and studied in Japan and Korea. He also visited the former Soviet Union in 1965, including Soviet Armenia. He shared his time between New York and Switzerland in the mid-1960s, while steadily maintaining his prolific output. He settled in Seattle, Washington, in the early 1970s. At this time, his music veered towards a more Western neo-romantic expression. In 1977 he married his sixth wife, Japanese soprano Hinako Fujihara. In the same year, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In 1991 the American Composers Society and the Eastern Prelacy, by initiative of Archbishop Mesrob Ashjian, celebrated the 80th birthday of Alan Hovhaness at Carnegie Hall. He directed his own works, including the premiere of his symphony No. 65 “Artsakh,” dedicated to the heroic fighters for the liberation of Karabagh and commissioned by the Prelacy.

The composer continued to be active until his 85th birthday. In 1996 his health suffered a marked decline. He passed away on June 21, 2000 at the age of 89. His official catalogue includes 67 symphonies and 434 works.

Death of Armen Tigranian - February 10, 1950

They were brother and sister, and had very divergent ways. While Armen (1879-1950) was a musician and became an artist emeritus of the Republics of Armenia and Georgia, Armenuhi (1888-1962) was a poet and became an expatriate with her husband Vartkes Aharonian, son of novelist Avetis Aharonian and a literary critic and public figure himself (people of certain age in the East Coast and particularly in New York will probably recall the Aharonians as teachers, writers, and lecturers).

Armen Tigranian was born in Alexandropol (now Gumri) on December 26, 1879. He played the flute from an early age and participated in the concerts of the woodwind orchestra at his school. His family moved to Tiflis in 1894 when he was fifteen. Eight years later he graduated from the classes of flute and musical theory of the School of Music; he had also taken lessons of composition from Makar Ekmalian, the noted author of the Armenian polyphonic mass. In the same year, 1902, he returned to Alexandropol. He organized school and popular choirs; the latter toured Tiflis, Baku, and Kars. He composed his first songs at this time with lyrics from poets like Avetik Isahakian and Hovhannes Hovhannisian, as well as arrangements of Armenian folkloric songs.

 

In 1908, at the age of 29, Tigranian started to write his first opera, Anush, based on the celebrated poem by Hovhannes Tumanian, which laid the ground for a new stylistic orientation in the Armenian music theater. Fragments of the opera were presented in Tiflis in the same year. A complete version of Anush was staged for the first time in Alexandropol four years later. The opera was the first composed in Eastern Armenian, and its Alexandropol performance was the first presentation of an opera in Armenia. For the next thirty years, the composer introduced some changes and additions, and revised the musical arrangement of his work. The opera was particularly remarkable for the scenes of popular feasts and ceremonies, as well as its lyrical songs, duets, and choir songs. Some of the melodies composed by Tigranian became very popular and continue to be popular to this day.

 

Tigranian commemorated on an Armenian stamp.

The composer moved back to Tiflis in 1913. He participated in the activities of the Armenian Musical Society (1913-1921), taught at the Hovnanian School and gave concerts. He wrote new works, such as music for the drama Layla and Majnun (1918), the Oriental Dance for symphonic orchestra, and choral works, and made arrangements of folkloric songs. 

Tigranian continued his creative endeavors during the 1920s and 1930s, and produced songs, cantatas, choral works, and piano works (Dance Song, Suite of Armenian Dances, Oriental Fantasy, Emerald of Shirak, Child Album, etcetera). Anush was staged for the first time at the Opera of Yerevan in 1935. 

During World War II, Tigranian started to work, among other pieces, on a new opera, David Bek, based on Raffi’s homonymous novel. The subject, which was the heroic resistance of the Armenians of Siunik against Persian and Turkish invasion in the 1720s, was suited to fit patriotic feelings, which were on the rise at the time in the Soviet Union. As in the case of Anush, the new opera included many elements of village music. He finished the opera in 1949, but it was premiered posthumously in 1950 at the Opera of Yerevan.

Besides writing music for many plays, Tigranian translated the librettos of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto and George Bizet’s Carmen into Armenian.

Tigranian’s house-museum is located in his birthplace, Gumri, while streets and music schools in Gumri and Yerevan have been named after him. His statue graces the Ring Park of Yerevan.

 

A scene from the opera Anush staged by the Gyumri Opera Company

 

 

Death of Gomidas Vartabed - October 22, 1935

Pen and ink drawing by Minas Minasian.

Gomidas Vartabed was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, but he was also a victim of it, for he was never able to recover from the traumatic effects of his short-termed deportation.

Soghomon Soghomonian was born in Kütahya (Gudina), in western Turkey, on October 8, 1869. His family was Turkish-speaking. He lost his mother when he was one year old and his father when he was ten. In 1881 he was taken to Holy Etchmiadzin, where he entered the Kevorkian Seminary.

His exceptional voice and musical abilities attracted special attention. He studied Armenian musical notes and religious music, collected popular songs, and made his first attempts at composing. In 1893 he graduated and was designated music teacher and choirmaster of the cathedral. One year later he was ordained a celibate priest, and named Gomidas in honor of Catholicos Gomidas, a musician and poet of the 7th century. In 1895, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite (vartabed).

He pursued musical studies in Berlin from 1896-1899. He returned to Etchmiadzin from 1899-1910. He collected close to 3,000 popular songs and dances, which he mostly arranged for choir versions. He presented his arrangements of Armenian popular and religious music in Paris (1906) with great success.

His musical programs included folk and sacred music, but his actions and ideas upset a conservative faction in Etchmiadzin. After Catholicos Mgrdich I (Khrimian Hairig) passed away in 1907, Gomidas’ situation became more problematic. He wrote that he could not breathe and was suffocating in Etchmiadzin. His formal request to become a hermit and continue his work was denied, and finally he decided to move to Constantinople.

He created the 300-member “Kusan” Choir and gave concerts in various places in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. Five of its members (Parsegh Ganachian, Mihran Toumajan, Vartan Sarxian, Vagharshag Srvantzdian, and Haig Semerjian) took classes of musical theory with him and came to be known as the “five Gomidas students.”

In April 1915, Gomidas was arrested with more than 200 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders and exiled to Chankiri. His behavior changed along the exile route. A few weeks later, while officiating at a church service, word came that he would be sent back to Constantinople with a few other notables.

The return was very difficult for him. His friends could not understand his odd behavior and considered him mad, committing him to the Turkish Military Psychiatric Hospital. Many of his compositions and notes were dispersed and lost.

In 1919 he was sent to Paris, where he spent the rest of his life, first in a private psychiatric hospital and then in the Villejuif asylum, where he passed away. In 1936 his body was sent to Armenia and buried in the pantheon named after him, where famous personalities found their final rest. The Music Conservatory of Yerevan is named after him, as is the state chamber quartet.

Gomidas was justly termed the Father of Armenian Music, as he rescued from oblivion more than 4,000 village songs and melodies, and set the foundation for the scientific study of Armenian music. He also wrote pieces for piano and songs, fragments for comedies and operas. His version of the Holy Mass is a classic work, used to this day by the Armenian Church.

Birth of Aram Khachaturian - June 6, 1903

Thirty-five years after his death, Aram Khachaturian remains the most widely known Armenian classical composer of all times. His “Sabre Dance,” the electrifying dance of the final act of the ballet “Gayane,” made him known on a popular level worldwide. A few years ago, the first notes of the “Sabre Dance” were even the score for an advertisement of hair shampoo in American TV, while some music of his other world-famous ballet, “Spartacus,” appeared most recently in the animated film “Ice Age: The Meltdown.”

Khachaturian was born in Kojori, near Tiflis (Georgia), on June 6, 1903, the youngest of five children. Young Aram was admitted to the Commerce School in Tiflis in 1913, but he preferred music. He learned to play woodwind instruments and became a member of a woodwind orchestra.

His elder brother, Suren, who was the stage director of the Second Moscow Art Theatre, took him to Moscow in 1921, where he entered the Gnessin Musical College. The future composer did not even know how to read music at the time. He quickly showed his talent for composition and in 1925 Mikhail Gnessin suggested he join his newly-opened composition class. Four years later, Khachaturian transferred to the Moscow Conservatory. He graduated with highest grades and composed his first big work, the First Symphony, in 1934, after marrying his classmate, composer Nina Makarova, the year before. In 1937 he became deputy chairman of the Moscow branch of the Composers’ Union, and then was appointed chairman of the Organizing Committee of Soviet Composers in 1939. The first ballet also came out that year. It was initially called “Happiness,” but Khachaturian later reworked it into the ballet “Gayane.”

The years 1936-1947 were the most prolific in Khachaturian’s life. He wrote music for dramatic performances and movies, songs, and religious music, including the Concerto for Violin (1941), the Concerto for Cello (1943), the Second Symphony (1946), the Third Symphony (1946), and the Symphonic Poem, later entitled the Third Symphony (1947).



The composer joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1943. In 1944 he composed the music of the anthem of Soviet Armenia. However, he temporarily fell from official favor in 1948. The Symphonic Poem, ironically written as a tribute to communism, earned Khachaturian the wrath of the Party. Andrei Zhdanov, secretary of the party’s Central Committee, delivered the so-called Zhdanov decree in 1948. The decree condemned composers Dimitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Khachaturian, and others as "formalist" and "anti-popular." The three named composers had already become established as the so-called "titans" of Soviet music, enjoying worldwide reputation as some of the leading composers of the 20th century. Nonetheless, all three were forced to apologize publicly.

Despite this episode, Khachaturian returned to official favor. He received numerous state awards both before and after the decree: for example, four Stalin prizes (1941, 1943, 1946 and 1950), one Lenin prize (1959), a USSR State Prize (1971), and the title of Hero of Socialist Labor (1973). Khachaturian went on to serve again as Secretary of the Board of the Composers' Union, starting in 1957 and was also a deputy in the fifth Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (1958–1962). In 1951 he became professor at the Gnessin State Musical and Pedagogical Institute (Moscow) and the Moscow Conservatory.

Although Khachaturian lived outside Armenia, he has been an iconic figure for generations of Armenian composers, and many important names, such as Arno Babajanian, Alexander Harutiunian, Edgar Hovhannisian, and Tigran Mansurian, among others, were particularly influence by him. Most of his works are saturated with centuries-old motifs of Armenian culture. Khachaturian encouraged young composers to experiment with new sounds and find their own voices. His colorful orchestration technique is still noted for its freshness and vitality.

Khachaturian’s ballet “Spartacus” premiered in December 1956, and its music was featured in various series and films in the West. His seventieth anniversary was officially celebrated in Moscow and Yerevan. He passed away in Moscow on May 1, 1978, and was buried in the “Gomidas” Pantheon in Yerevan, together with other great Armenian personalities.

The composer’s picture is featured on the 50 dram Armenian banknote, as well as in various Soviet, Armenian, and Russian stamps. Various streets in Armenia, Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan are named after him. His house-museum was opened in Yerevan in 1982.

Death of Kristapor Kara-Murza - March 27, 1902

This year is the 160th anniversary of the birth of composer Kristapor Kara-Murza, introducer of choral music in Armenian culture. He was born on March 2, 1853 (February 18, according to the old Julian calendar) in the town of Gharasu-Bazar, currently Bielogorsk, in the Crimea (Ukraine). He started to play piano and flute at age 8 and also took private lessons from music teachers in the town. He developed his abilities to read and write music. He was just a teenager when he started to organize and offer concerts. 

He moved to Tiflis, the capital of the viceroyalty of the Caucasus, in 1882, and then to Baku from 1885-1892. He was the editor of musical criticism for the daily Mshak, edited by Grigor Artzruni. Kara-Murza offered the first concert of choral music in Armenian history, with a program of patriotic songs, at the theater founded by Artzruni in Tiflis. This was a novelty, as Armenian music was fundamentally written on a one-voice basis, as opposed to European four voices (polyphony). During the next seventeen years, until his premature death at the age of 49, the composer organized some 90 choral groups in fifty cities of Armenia and outside the country, including Tiflis, Baku, Etchmiadzin, Nakhichevan-on-the-Don, Odessa, Batum, Moscow, Kars, Shushi, Constantinople, and others, and gave more than 250 concerts with the participation of 6,000 people.

Kara-Murza’s most important achievement was the collection of Armenian religious and popular songs, and their musical arrangement and conversion into polyphonic music. In 1887 he premiered his arrangement of the Divine Liturgy in a concert in Baku. He taught music at the Kevorkian Seminary of Holy Etchmiadzin in 1892-1893, and later settled back in Tiflis, where he gave special courses to musical conductors.

He also composed songs with lyrics by Armenian poets, as well as music a cappella, and also arranged operatic melodies. He presented in Baku fragments of Faust, the famous opera of French composer Charles Gounod (1818-1893), in Armenian translation. Kara-Murza arranged 300 choral and popular songs, among them such classics as “Dzidzernag,” “Zinch oo zinch,” “Kezi mernim,” “Khorodig,” “Lepho lele.”  He also composed and transcribed popular dances, and became the precursor to the modern song and dance ensembles.

In recent years, Kara-Murza has been credited with the composition of the music of the song “Mer Hairenik,” with lyrics by Mikael Nalbandian (1829-1866), which he premiered in Tiflis, in 1885. His music was the basis for the arrangement by Parsegh Ganachian (1885-1967), one of Gomidas’ disciples, which is performed today as the Armenian national anthem.