Komitas vardapet wikipedia

BIOGRAPHY OF KOMITAS

Komitas, a.k.a. Soghomon Soghomonyan, was born on September 26, 1869 in Anatolia, Turkey, in the town of Koutina (Ketaia). His father, Gevorg Soghomonyan was a shoemaker but he also composed songs and had a beautiful voice. The composer’s mother – Tagui - was also singled out for her vivid musical abilities; she was a carpet weaver.
Komitas’s childhood was joyless and full of deprivations. He lost his mother when he was less than one year old, and because his father was too busy his grandmother took care of him. At age 7 Komitas entered the local elementary school. As soon as he finished school his father sent him to Broosa to continue his education. However, he failed and 4 months later he came home having ultimately become an orphan: his father passed away and Soghomon was only 11 years old…
“He was a frail, weak, pale boy, always thoughtful and kind. He was dressed poorly,” one of his classmates recalled about Komitas.
Soghomon was often seen sleeping on the cold stones of the laundry room.
He could sing perfectly, and no wonder in Koutina he was nicknamed “a little vagrant singer”.
For his delightful voice Soghomonyan was also indebted to an event that fundamentally changed the entire course of his life.
In 1881 the priest of Koutina, G. Dertsakyan, had to leave for Echmiadzin to be ordained a bishop. At the request of the Catholicos he brought the gifted orphan boy with him to study at the Echmiadzin Church Seminary. Twelve-year old Soghomon was selected out of the other 20 orphans to study at the Seminary. As it was forbidden to speak Armenian at that time the boy spoke Turkish and when being greeted by the Catholicos Gevorg IV, he replied, “I don’t speak Armenian, if you wish I will sing”. Then with his fine soprano voice he sang an Armenian sharakan (a church hymn) without understanding the words. Due to his exclusive aptitude Soghomon overcame all the obsta

For other uses, see Komitas (disambiguation).

Armenian composer and religious figure

Soghomon Soghomonian,ordained and commonly known as Komitas (Armenian: Կոմիտաս; 8 October [O.S. 26 September] 1869 – 22 October 1935), was an Ottoman-Armenian priest, musicologist, composer, arranger, singer, and choirmaster, who is considered the founder of the Armenian national school of music. He is recognized as one of the pioneers of ethnomusicology.

Orphaned at a young age, Komitas was taken to Etchmiadzin, Armenia's religious center, where he received education at the Gevorgian Seminary. Following his ordination as vardapet (celibate priest) in 1895, he studied music at the Frederick William University in Berlin. He thereafter "used his Western training to build a national tradition". He collected and transcribed over 3,000 pieces of Armenian folk music, more than half of which were subsequently lost and only around 1,200 are now extant. Besides Armenian folk songs, he also showed interest in other cultures and in 1903 published the first-ever collection of Kurdish folk songs titled Kurdish melodies. His choir presented Armenian music in many European cities, earning the praise of Claude Debussy, among others. Komitas settled in Constantinople in 1910 to escape mistreatment by ultra-conservative clergymen at Etchmiadzin and to introduce Armenian folk music to wider audiences. He was widely embraced by Armenian communities, while Arshag Chobanian called him the "savior of Armenian music".

During the Armenian genocide—along with hundreds of other Armenian intellectuals—Komitas was arrested and deported to a prison camp in April 1915 by the Ottoman government. He was soon released under unclear circumstances and, having witnessed indiscriminate cruelty and relentless massacres of other Armenians by the Ottoman Turks, Komitas experienced a men

Soghomon Gevorki Soghomonyan - Komitas Vardepet (also Gomidas Vartabed) (September 26 1869 in Kütahya, Ottoman Empire - October 22 1935, Paris, France), was an Armenianpriest, composer, choir leader, singer, music ethnologist, music teacher and musicologist, known as the founder of modern Armenian classical music.

He was born into a family whose members were deeply involved in music and were monolingual in Turkish. His mother died when he was one and ten years later his father died. In 1895 he became a priest and obtained the title Vardapet (or Vartabed), meaning a priest or a church scholar.

He established and conducted the monastery choir till 1896 when he went to Berlin, to the Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm University. Here he studied music at the private conservatory of Prof. Richard Schmidt. In 1899 he acquired the title doctor of musicology and returned to Echmiadzin. He traveled extensively around the country, listening and recording details about Armenian folk songs and dances performed in various villages. This way he collected and published some 3000 songs, many of them adapted to choir singing.

His major work is Badarak (Divine Liturgy), still used today as one of the two most popular musical settings of the Armenian Church liturgy.

He was the first non-European to be admitted into the International Music Society of which he was a co-founder.

On April 24, 1915, said to be the day when Armenian Genocide officially began, he was arrested. The next day he was put on a train with 180 other Armenian notables and sent to the city of Çankırı in northern Central Anatolia, at a distance of some 300 miles. His good friend, Turkish nationalist poetEmin Yurdakul, the authoress Halide Edip, and the U.S.ambassadorHenry Morgenthau intervened with the government and, by special orders from Talat Pasha, Komitas was sent back to the capital. In autumn 1916, he was taken to a Turkish military hospital and he moved to

A vardapet (Armenian: վարդապետ, Eastern Armenian: [vaɾtʰa'pεt]; Western Armenian: vartabed, [vɑɾtʰɑˈbɛd]) is a title given to highly educated hieromonks in the Armenian Apostolic Church. It has been variously translated as 'doctor', 'doctor-monk', 'archimandrite', or 'doctor of theology'.

The term originated from vardbad, a Middle Persian term, while the Parthian variant, varžapet, is retained in Armenian for "teacher". James R. Russell said that the Middle Persian form indicates that the Christian Armenian title was adopted on the model of a Sasanian Zoroastrian office. The term vardapet, which in Classical Armenian had the primary meaning of 'teacher' or 'head teacher', has been used in the Armenian Church from its earliest days.Mesrop Mashtots, the creator of the Armenian alphabet, is regarded as the first great vardapet. A vardapet has the right to interpret scripture, preach and, especially, to teach. A vardapet's staff (gavazan) is a symbol of his office. The title of vardapet requires special ordination and is not held by all high-ranking Armenian clergyman; there have been Armenian bishops and patriarchs who did not achieve the rank of vardapet.

The Armenian Church has fourteen ranks of vardapet, which are granted to celibate priests who have completed special education and presented a thesis. The first four ranks of vardapet are called masnavor vardapetut’yun or 'partial/minor vardapet-hood', while the remaining ten are called tsayraguyn vardapetut’yun or 'supreme vardapet-hood'. The ordination of new vardapets was formerly conducted by tsayraguyn vardapets, but it is now done solely by bishops. The lower ranks of vardapet are equivalent to the degree of Master of Divinity, while the rank of tsayraguyn vardapet is equivalent to the degree of Doctor of Divinity. The canons of the vardapet-hood were recorded by the medieval jurist and theologian Mkhitar Gosh, while Gregor