Revisiting Gyumri, Armenia’s Cultural Capital

Sanoyan, who in 1988 was just 4, remembers everything from the disaster that claimed about 25,000 lives, 17,000 from Gyumri: the depressed mood, the air of decay and scenes of destruction — and somber black, the color worn, it seemed, by everyone, and for decades. Now, she reported, bright colored clothing has returned and with it, a sense of optimism.

In her role in the city, she is eager to utilize local and international opportunities, to fulfill the hopes of the citizenry. “Through innovative strategies and collaborative partnerships,” she concluded, “I remain steadfast in my commitment to Gyumri’s prosperity, aiming to leave behind a legacy of enduring progress for generations to come.”

The Venera Harp

The delegation from Ars Musica was scheduled to perform in the following days in the city, before going on tour. After a visit to the City Council assembly, which hosts an impressive fresco by Minas Avetisyan, we visited the Conservatory, the Gyumri branch of Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan.

Director Prof. Hasmik H. Harutyunyan welcomed us in the concert hall, where a beautiful, huge harp dominated the stage. Harutyunyan introduced the visitors from Germany to the conservatory, named after Komitas Vardapet, the renowned Armenian musician, composer, choirmaster, and founder of Armenian ethnomusicology. Komitas travelled throughout the land in the 19th century collecting local folk melodies and transcribing them. He studied from 1896 to 1899 at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and published studies on the characteristics of Armenian music.

In Germany he engaged in intensive study of Baroque music, especially the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, and with this new knowledge, revolutionized Armenian music, she explained. Through his studies, publications, and compositions, Harutyunyan said, Komitas came to symbolize the strong ties between Armenia and Germany to the current day.

Thorsten Weiss, Chairman of the Board of Ars Musica, delighted his listeners with the story of the harp. In discussion with the director of the conservatory years ago, he had casually inquired what he and his colleagues might be able to contribute to the music school. Prof. Harutyunyan’s quick answer, a “concert harp,” came as a surprise.

She had students who were eager to play the harp, but without an adequate instrument she could not offer instruction. It would not be easy. Weiss, undeterred, set about the task of finding one in Europe. It turned out that the market for used concert harps was practically non-existent, and the price of a new instrument appeared prohibitive. Weiss however managed to locate a magnificent new instrument, a Venera Grand Concert Harp, in St. Petersburg.

Through the mediation of Alexan Ter-Minasyan, a coalition of donors came together, the chorus, the Rotary Club and our private foundation in Germany. Through benefit concerts as well as donations, together we raised the funds to purchase and transport the instrument to Gyumri. That occurred in August 2021. Last year in June, Hasmik Mkrtchyan, a talented student at the conservatory, had presented a premiere performance on the new harp, the first such concert in the Gyumri Conservatory’s 25 years.

Now she offered an informal concert for the visitors from Germany, including my husband and myself, who were experiencing this magnificent instrument in live performance for the first time. Komitas, whose portrait hangs on the wall, seemed to be listening too. Music for a Dialog among Peoples The new harp is not just another instrument for musical education.

As Prof. Harutyunyan explained in a brief interview, the mission of the Gyumri Conservatory, founded in 1997, is to provide higher musical education and train professional musical personnel, and to fulfill this mission quality instruments are indispensable.

In addition, the conservatory contributes to preserving the musical-cultural heritage of the Shirak region. She stressed the importance of cultural exchange with musicians from other lands, and considers the city partnership with Halle as “a dream.”

If there may be a lack of instructors in some areas, professional exchanges with leading musicians become all the more vital. Master classes, for example, taught by visiting musicians, like violinists Aram Badalian and Sergei Khachatryan, are sterling examples of such cooperation. And Badalian hopes to expand this cooperation, by promoting travel for Armenian music students to Germany for study.

Komitas was a pioneer in introducing Baroque music to Armenia, and this remains an important link to Germany, Harutyunyan added. It would be desirable to arrange for small groups of Armenian musicians/students to work with larger groups in Germany. Harutyunyan herself is a musicologist, researcher, and scientific secretary at the Shirak Center for Armenian Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia. A graduate of the Komitas State Conservatory, she received her PhD in 2005, and has published widely. She is the author of a monograph entitled, The V-XV Century Music in the Context of Armenian Historiography (2010) and about 50 articles. She has conducted research on the ashugs, bards or troubadours, who played and sang folk music, and is interested in exploring the parallels to the Minnesänger or minstrels in Germany, who were also organized in guilds. Harutyunyan has studied the history of church liturgy, and is also active as a voice trainer in this field. She teaches young men training for the priesthood, providing instruction in European solfeggio and notation as well as medieval Armenian notation, voice training, and choral work. In the realm of her scientific work, too, Harutyunyan is eager to develop cooperation with musicologists and ethnologists abroad. Such collaboration not only enhances scientific research, it forges productive relations among individuals and nations.