This performance is a celebration of the work of the Armenian composer, choirmaster and musicologist Gomidas Vartabed (real name Sogomon Sogomonyan, 1869-1935), sometimes known in English as ‘Komitas’. Born in Kütahya, he received training as a priest in Etchmiadzin, the main Armenian religious centre. He then studied music at the Berlin Humboldt University, thereafter using this training to found an Armenian national school of western-style music. In 1915 Gomidas, together with a number of other Armenian intellectuals, was banished from Istanbul, and as a result of this harrowing experience spent the final years of his life struggling with mental illness.
In this concert, Gomidas Vartabed’s remarkably technically advanced and tasteful music will be sung by the Lusavoriç Choir. (An aside: in his youth, Dacat Derderyan, the father of the famous Turkish-Armenian photographer Ara Güler, sang in Vartabed’s choir in Istanbul’s Ortaköy district.)
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
