Newsletter: Modulation Necklace Vol. 2

The Armenian Music Ensemble is devoted to performing the folk music that developed in Armenian oral traditions. In teaching songs, instrumentals, and corresponding dances, this ensemble offers an integrative approach to developing competency in a variety of traditional Armenian forms. Alongside practice, the course addresses some of the important discourses that have shaped the sensibilities of Armenian identity, music, and folklore at large. Students will learn in a participatory environment and are required to practice in groups outside of class. Prior “musical” competency is not required and instruments are welcomed at the discretion of the instructor.

Armenian azgagrakan dance technique. Seen in Armenia at outdoor dance gatherings and on the proscenium stage, azgagrakan is an increasingly popular genre that consciously integrates Armenian vernacular aesthetics into contemporary practice and performance. A communal activity and social dance form, the azgagrakan repertoire includes ritual, wedding, and martial dances among others. In addition to movement, students will also engage with in-class viewings, presentations, and guest lectures on the cultural significances of azgagrakan dancing as an expression of Armenian heritage amidst genocide, dispossession, and cultural erasure. Additionally, we will work towards dismantling pejorative associations of “folk” and “traditional” as natural, un-modern, and devoid of complexity. Throughout the class, students will be encouraged to question dominant notions of dance as an individuated Western art practice, and will instead read dancemaking through the lens of community-building.

A vital component of the Armenian Music Program is the provision of the Introduction to Armenian Music course, aimed at both music and non-music majors to serve as a window into one of the most unique music cultures of the world.

The Introduction to Armenian Music course is a lecture class inviting students to explore the history, tradition, and scope of the music of Armenia. Additionally, the class focuses on a variety of genres and approaches, as well as the interactions between music and culture, society, and history. Students meet for three hours a week; classroom demonstrations of Armenian music are provided by the VEM Ensemble and guest musicians. There is also an emphasis on the evolution of Armenian music within the macrostructure of Armenia’s socio-political and cultural development, as well as the rich history of engagement with other societies near and far. The class ensures that students receive a comprehensive introduction to the kaleidoscopic mosaic that is Armenian music and the complex factors that have shaped its multifaceted texture.

This course explores historical and ethnographic accounts on musical life in and beyond the Mediterranian. Focusing on specific sociopolitical contexts, it studies the role of musical discourse and practices in identity formation in the region and in its multiple diasporas. Throughout the term, we will examine the construction of spaces and subjectivities through music production, consumption, preservation, and exchange. While doing this, we will also develop an intersectional analytical perspective informed by social and critical theory to discuss issues such as politics of aesthetics, knowledge and affect production, community formation, musical ways of witnessing genres of remembrance, musical expressions of dissent. Performance of memory in Armenian music; protest music culture and song bans in Turkey; music and racial justice in Europe; sonic history of colonialism and migration across the Mediterranean; music and social movements in the Middle East and North Africa are topics to be covered in this course.

This course is a graduate seminar that aims to connect Armenian music research with women’s, gender and sexuality studies. Throughout the term, we will familiarize ourselves with the existing literature on the musical lives of Armenians in different parts of the world. By the help of relevant scholarship on past and present Armenian communities, we will situate sonic experiences in their larger historic and ethnographic contexts. We will develop a critical framework informed by theories of gender, race, class, and geography to discuss the production and consumption of Armenian music, musical discourses and practices of Armenians, and the politics of representation and memory in/of Armenian music.

With a mission to engage the community and expand the reach of Armenian music, this program relies on partners at UCLA and beyond. The following partners help this program reach a larger audience and provide philanthropic resources that support this program’s ongoing activities:

• Lark Musical Society
• Tekeyan Cultural Association
• C&E Merdinian Armenian Evangelical School
• UCLA Armenian Students’ Association
• Creative Armenia
• Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Society 
• Armenian Educational Foundation 
• Dilijan Series