An Island of Armenian Chanters: San Lazzaro and the Sacred Musical Traditions of the Mekhitarist Fathers

This lecture will be devoted to an unprecedented multi-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.

Collating mediaeval sources with transcriptions, sound recordings and remnants of the oral tradition, Haig Utidjian will trace the evolution of the chants over time and provide a coherent framework for analysis, reconstruction and interpretation—raising substantial challenges that transcend the milieu of the island.

Dr. Haig Utidjian is an orchestral conductor, chorus master, musicologist, and patristics scholar. He has published extensively on the musicology and theology of the Armenian Hymnal and on the works of St. Gregory of Narek. He is a Senior Deacon of the Armenian Orthodox Church, and has been decorated with the Komitas medal by the Armenian state, the Hakob Meghapart medal of the National Library of Armenia and the Medal of Merit of the Pan-Armenian Cultural Union. His publications include the volumes They Who Imbibed the Effusions of the Spirit: The Art of the Armenian Book Through the Ages (2016), Treasures of the Earliest Christian Nation: Spirituality, Art and Music in Mediaeval Armenian Manuscripts (2018), and Tntesean and the Music of the Armenian Hymnal (2018). In 2023 he joined the Centre for Music Studies (CESEM) at the New University of Lisbon as a collaborating member. He has been appointed to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Visiting Chair of Excellence at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) at the Sorbonne in Paris for the academic year 2026-2027.