Lectures by Haig Utidjian (EMS) I Activities September and October 2026
Haig Utijian, a researcher in the Early Music Studies Group, will give a lecture at Harvard University / Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations. The session, “Armenian scribes and cantors through the centuries”, is scheduled for the last Wednesday of the month, September 30.
“Armenians have sought to facilitated transmission of their sacred melodies from one generation to the next throgh various means, of which the most intriguing is a mediaeval neumatic notation that we are unable to decipher. Nevertheless, a valuable corpus of music has reached us, subjected to successive waves of filtration and re-composition by generations of cantors, transcribed in the nineteenth century. The talk will trace the evolving relationship between notation and oral transmission”, he explains.
On Thursday October 1, Haig will deliver another lecture entitled “An island of Armenian chanters: San Lazzaro and the sacred musical traditions of the Mekhitarist Fathers”. The event will take place at the Vartan Gregorian Building of the NAASR in Belmont, but will also be streamed live on YouTube (via the NAASR channel).
“The lecture will be devoted to a mutli-disciplinary investigation of the endangered musical traditions of the Mekhitarist Order of San Lazzaro, Venice, in the context of the Order’s close cultural ties with the European mainland, changing aesthetics, and shifts in the interplay between orality and notation – raising substantial challenges that transcend the milieu of the island”, he adds.
Making use of this online format, the researcher will deliver another lecture, this time in Armenian, for the daily newspaper Aztag. The event will take place on October 15 and will focus on the “Treasures from the Mekhitarist musical tradition”, including live and recorded performances of various highly melismatic chants, placing them in the context of both their evolution over time within the monastic environment and in comparison with their equivalents from other centres of Armenian chant around the world. To obtain the Zoom link, please email minas777@gmail.com.
Finally, Haig Utidjian will also be leading a lecture at the Calvin Colloquium, at St Vladimir’s Theological Seminary, on 29 and 30 October, on the topic “Teaching Armenian chant through the generations”.
