The concert, which is sponsored by the Watertown and Mass Cultural Councils and co-hosted by six local Armenian churches, also features a special archival display from the collection of NAASR, the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research.
Rounding out the program are two rarely-heard works for string orchestra by composers from the Armenian Diaspora: New England native Alan Hovhaness and Soviet-era composer Alexander Arutiunian.
Composing in 1970s Soviet Armenia, Arutiunian forged a unique expressive musical voice that fused elements of Armenian folk music with aspects of the Russian musical lineage of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and, more recently, Shostakovich and Prokofiev. His Sinfonietta, which is performed by special arrangement of the publisher, is concieved in the mold of Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony, a four-movement exploration of the musical colors and textures available to the string orchestra.
Where Arutiunian combined a Soviet approach to composition with Armenian melodic and harmonic coloring, Hovhanes, who grew up in Arlington, explored in his music his lifelong fascination with Armenian folklore and spirituality. His rarely-heard Celestial Fantasy is a contemplative ode to the music of Komitas, featuring harmonies and scales drawn from Armenian folk music assimilated into a brand-new musical langauge that The Boston Globe called “hushed, reverential, mystical, nostalgic.”
Celestial Fantasies:
Music of the Armenian Highlands and the Diaspora
Join us for a multidisciplinary celebration of Armenia’s musical heritage in Watertown, home of New England’s largest Armenian community and a new statue of the Armenian musician Komitas!
A priest, composer, choir leader, and musicologist, Komitas (also known as Gomidas Vartabed) established much of the musical heritage of Armenia as we know it today. He collected folk tunes from all over the country, recording them for posterity in several published volumes. Although Komitas himself became a casualty of the Armenian Genocide (traumatized by what he experienced during his deportation, he died in a pyschiatric clinic), his music lives on, including in the set of Armenian folk songs transcribed for strings by Sergey Aslamazyan, founder of the renowned Komitas Quartet.
On December 12th at the historic St. Stephen’s Armenian Apostolic Church in Watertown, MA — where Komitas’s music forms part of the weekly liturgy — the Orchestra Without Borders will perform the Armenian Folk Songs transcribed by Aslamazyan in collaboration with the women of the internationally-renowned Sayat Nova Dance Company, a leading Armenian dance organization.