KOMITAS AND HIS LEGACY International conference on the occasion of Komitas Vardapet’s 150th birthday 08-10 October, 2019 : Humboldt University Halle-Wittenberg: Martin Luther University

Organized by -Institute Armenian Embassy to German Federation In collaboration with Humboldt University Berlin Berlin State Library Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

Komitas Vardapet (1869-1935) is an Armenian ethnomusicologist, music collector, composer and the founder of Armenian national school of art music. His investment in comparative concerning Eastern music and his compositional techniques outlined new paths in music. Through his activity Komitas revealed effective displays of cross-cultural interactions in music and musicology. He input his knowledge gained at the Royal (now Humboldt) University in Berlin and Richard Schmidt Conservatory in Armenian culture. As a founding member of the International Music Society he practically made active reciprocity between Armenian and European musicology. He composed works based on not only Armenian, but also German poetry. He even mastered in conjoining such different cultural elements as the melodies of the traditional Armenian Divine Liturgy and its literary texts in German translations were. Moreover, Komitas was a pioneer in comparative musicology. He collected and studied folk music of not only , but also that of neighboring nations, among them being Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, Persian etc. In the modern world, Komitas’s concepts of cross-cultural models in music collection, and art music continue suggesting new outlooks in the fields he was engaged in. This conference aims to rethink and re-assess Komitas and also to discuss the fields he worked in with a new view. Field-work, ethnomusicology, medieval studies, composition, as well as church studies and liturgical studies are among these fields. Various musicological issues are to be discussed according to Komitas’s viewpoints. Both Armenian and non-Armenian cultures are considered to be discussed in the conference.

PROPOSED CONFERENCE THEMES  Komitas and his time  Komitas in Germany  Komitas and musicology (ethnomusicology, church music)  Medieval chant and liturgy  Art music and national schools of music composition  Comparative musicology

Working languages of the conference are Armenian, German and English. Paper presentations should be about 20 minutes allowing 10 minutes for discussion. Selected papers will be published in the Yearbook of Komitas Museum-Institute. Abstracts of about 300 words accompanied by a short biography of the author(s) are to be sent by April 15, 2019 to the following e-mail: [email protected] .