40 Facts About Komitas

Komitas 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.

Komitas thereafter "used his Western training to build a national tradition".

Komitas 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.

Komitas's 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.

Komitas was widely embraced by Armenian communities, while Arshag Chobanian called him the "savior of Armenian music".

Komitas was first placed in a Turkish military-operated hospital until 1919 and then transferred to psychiatric hospitals in Paris, where he spent the last years of his life in agony.

Komitas is widely seen as a martyr of the genocide and has been depicted as one of the main symbols of the Armenian Genocide in art.

Collection of Works of the Composer Komitas Vardapet is included to UNESCO Memory of the World Register.

Komitas was born Soghomon Soghomonian in Kutahya, Hudavendigar Vilayet, Ottoman Empire on 26 September 1869 to Armenian parents Kevork and Takuhi.

Komitas's mother was originally from Bursa and was sixteen at the time of his birth.

Komitas died in March 1870, just six months after giving birth to him.

Komitas's death left deep scars on him, whose earliest poems were devoted to her.

Komitas possibly stayed with his maternal grandparents who lived in the city.

Komitas was sent back to Kutahya four months later, following the death of his father who had become an alcoholic.

Komitas's life took a radical turn in the fall of 1881.

On 1 October 1881, Komitas was introduced to Catholicos Gevorg IV, who was disappointed with his lack of knowledge of Armenian, but was so impressed with his singing talent that he often asked Komitas to sing for visitors.

Between 1881 and 1910, Komitas was mainly based in Etchmiadzin, although he did spend a significant time in Europe.

Komitas gradually discovered a great passion for music and started writing down songs sung by Armenian villagers near Etchmiadzin, who affectionately called him "Notaji Vardapet", meaning "the note-taking priest".

Komitas finished the seminary in 1893, became a music teacher and was appointed the choirmaster of the Etchmiadzin Cathedral, Armenia's mother church.

In October 1895, Komitas left Etchmiadzin for Tiflis to study harmony under composer Makar Yekmalyan, whose polyphonic rendering of Armenian liturgy is the most widely used and who became one of Komitas's most influential teachers.

The six months Komitas spent with Yekmalyan deepened his understanding of European harmonic principles and laid the groundwork for his further education in European conservatories.

Komitas arrived in Berlin in early June 1896 without having been accepted by any university.

Komitas initially took private lessons with Richard Schmidt for a few months.

Fleischer in May 1899 established the Berlin chapter of the International Musical Society, of which Komitas became an active member.

Komitas lectured there on Armenian folk music and suggested that it dated back to pre-Christian, pagan times.

Komitas assembled and trained a large polyphonic choir based on his acquired knowledge.

Komitas thus took the scholarly task of transcribing and preserving rural Armenian songs.

The Turkish nationalist poet Mehmet Emin Yurdakul, the writer Halide Edip and US ambassador Henry Morgenthau intervened with the government, and by special orders from Talat Pasha, Komitas was dispatched back to the capital alongside eight other Armenians who had been deported.

Grigoris Balakian's Armenian Golgotha offers details of his deportation, during which Komitas suffered tremendously and was afflicted with traumatic neurosis.

The expert on Armenian songs, the peerless archimandrite Father Komitas, who was in our carriage, seemed mentally unstable.

Komitas thought the trees were bandits on the attack and continually hid his head under the hem of my overcoat, like a fearful partridge.

Komitas begged me to say a blessing for him ["The Savior"] in the hope that it would calm him.

Komitas's works have been published in Armenia in a thoroughly annotated edition by Robert Atayan.

On 6 July 2008, on the occasion of Quebec City's 400th anniversary celebration, a bronze bust of Komitas was unveiled near the Quebec National Assembly in recognition of his great input to music in general and to Armenian popular and liturgical music in particular.

Previously, a granite and bronze statue of Komitas was erected in Detroit in 1981 in honor of the great composer and as a reminder of the tragedy of the Armenian Genocide.

Komitas was accompanied by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra conducted by Anne Manson, and pianist Serouj Kradjian.

The complete piano works of Komitas are recorded by Sahan Arzruni on Kalan Muzik label in 2010 and remain the definitive interpretation of these compositions.

Since 2018 Komitas appears on the 10000 Armenian dram banknote.