Haig Utidjian, PhD, is an orchestral conductor, chorus master and musicologist. A pupil of Abp. Zareh Aznaworean, he is a Senior Deacon of the Armenian Church, with research interests in the musicology and theology of the Armenian Hymnal, the works of St. Gregory of Narek, the Constantinopolitan and Venetian Armenian musical traditions, notation, and interactions with the Ottoman and Byzantine traditions. He was decorated with the Komitas medal by the Armenian state and the Yakob Mełapart medal by the National Library of Armenia. His recent publications include the volumes The Art of the Armenian Book through the Ages, Treasures of the earliest Christian nation, Tntesean and the Music of the Armenian Hymnal, and a new edition of Dvořák’s Mass in D for Bärenreiter. An independent scholar, he holds an honorary affiliation with the Philosophical Faculty at Charles University in Prague.
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Haig Utidjian will trace the development of the melodies of the much-loved Armenian badarak or patarag over the second millennium C.E., beginning with some of the earliest extant manuscript sources, where chants are notated using Armenian “khaz” notation. In the nineteenth-century church musicians recorded the various melodies as sung in Venice, India and Constantinople, using a new system of Armenian musical notation and Western notation. Exposure to Western music led to harmonisations by Bianchini, Kara Murza, Komitas, Ekmalian, Chilingirian and others, explored in this lecture with the help of recorded and live musical demonstrations. Finally, a remarkable development towards the end of the Soviet era was the arrangement of an exquisite orchestral concert suite by Zareh Sahakiants, who adapted and re-arranged a selection from Komitas’ version – representing the distillation of almost one thousand years of creation, transmission and interpretation.
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Join us on Zoom!
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89025794382?pwd=KzR2S1pxa1F4V2diOHVwd2ZjeUZ0QT09
Meeting ID: 890 2579 4382 Passcode: 056388
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This Event is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund
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