When Two Armenians Meet in Prague

Maestro Haig Utidjian

      In a March 7, 2019 post, Going to Prague, I wrote about looking forward to meeting Haig Utidjian a composer, maestro, and deacon that I got to know on about a year ago.
    We first became acquainted on Facebook in June 2018 via my distant cousin, Levon Avdoyan, who is recently retired from the Library of Congress and a revered scholar on Armenia and the Middle East. Levon had organized a conference in Washington, DC on Armenian Studies and he had invited Haig to make a presentation. About a year ago, Levon, Haig, and I got into a wonderful discussion on a Sunday morning on FB. Oddly, I do not recall the specific Armenian topic but do fondly recall being a part of the trio with these two scholars. We agreed that we should continue the discussion in DC when we were at the conference which I was planning to attend. We were going to DC for the Smithsonian Folklore Festival which was featuring Armenia. Alas, our plans changed, and I was unable to get there early enough to attend the conference.
     Later in that summer of 2018. we decided to make Prague the destination for the School of Business and Nonprofit Management International Experience Trip for 2019, I let Haig know. I was looking at getting to meet him as bonus of the trip.
      A few days before leaving, we texted again and tried to coordinate our schedules. It was going to be tough. Certainly, we had a busy tour schedule. Haig was also busy with his class and various ensemble practice schedules. I did mention we were free on Sunday, and perhaps we could meet at the Armenian Church. He said “splendid” and that would work as he was the deacon. Haig informed me that it would only be a vesper service taking place in the early afternoon. It mattered not; I was looking forward to meeting him.
     Haig didn’t just say “splendid.” As he knew I was a musician, he said “Splendid, we will put you in a shabik (robe) and we will sing two Lenten sharagans (hymns) together. I will send you the music.” I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. I am a so-so sight reader when playing the oud. I am a horrible sight reader when it comes to singing.
     A few minutes later, I got a text from Haig. Sure enough, there were two attachments. I opened the first. There was no music, just words, naturally in Armenian script. Upon further review, I noticed every other line were the lyrics, the in between lines were a cross between braille and Arabic. Slowly, I realized, that he sent me the music in Hamparsum Nota! This well-known, and seldom used these days, notation was the invention of Hampartsum Limondjian, better known as Hamparsum Baba, in Turkey. Hamparsum Baba developed a system of musical notation that he developed rooted in an older Armenian system of runes. Hamparsum Nota is credited with preserving classical Ottoman music until Western musical notation was adopted. I was impressed that Haig thought I could read Hamparsum Nota which I cannot. But, I was suddenly motivated to learn more. This is the kind of inspirational fellow Maestro Haig is!
     I asked if any of the students wanted to go with me. Donna Hardy and her

Me, Vita, Fr. Barsegh, and Donna
Church of the Holy Spirit

friend Vita Robinson decided they wanted to go to church and, as they did not want to venture out alone, decided to come with me. The church the Armenians were using was the Church of the Holy Spirit. This historic medieval Catholic Church is next to the even more famous Spanish Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter which is designated as a UNESCO Historic Site. The Cardinal Duka, the archbishop of Prague and the Primate of Bohemia, has graciously allowed the Armenians to use this beautiful old stone church.
     It was a drizzly cold day in Prague. They church did not have a heating system, so it was cold, even colder than outside, in the sanctuary. We never took off our coats. It was definitely how our ancestors went to church. Haig sang beautifully. He has a lovely clear tenor voice and his nuances of the church modes took me back to my youth back in St. Sarkis Church in Detroit. After the short service, we took some photos and went to Father Barsegh’s office… where there was heat! We had coffee and chatted with Father Barsegh.
     After that, Donna, Vita, Haig, and I went to a bistro and chatted some more.

Haig brought me books he had authored to carry back to the states for Levon. I was delighted to do so. He also generously brought copies for me as well. One of the books was titled: Tntesean and the Music of the Armenian Hymnal. This book introduces, well almost everyone, to the massive tome (like 800 pages) that Elia Tntesean compiled in the 1800s of all the Hymns of the Armenian Church that had been preserved using Hamparsum Nota. The second book was, Treasures of the Earliest Christian Nation: Spirituality, Art, and Music in Medieval Armenian Manuscripts. Both books, at first glance, were impressive.
     In inspecting and thumbing through the Tntesean book, I noticed an endorsement on the back from “Krikor Pidedjian, Komitas State Conservatoire of Yerevan.” I know Krikor very well as he was the Director of Camp Haiastan when I attended back in 1967. When we moved to New York, I was reacquainted with Krikor, an eminent authority on Armenian Sacred music himself. I asked, “I see Krikor Pidedjian endorsed your work. How wonderful.” Haig replied, “Do you know Krikor?” I related how I did. It seems that when Haig was preparing this book, he visited St. Nerses Seminary in New York and everyone told him he needed to meet with Krikor. As it was arranged, Krikor’s wife let Haig know the visit would be brief because of Krikor’s health. Perhaps, he could only meet for half an hour. Well, Krikor was engaged to exchange views and knowledge with another scholar passionate about Armenian Church Music. They spent almost five hours together.
     Haig asked, if I would kindly carry two more books back to the States for

Krikor which I most certainly agreed to. As he did not have the books with him, we would have to meet again. Haig invited me to his apartment on my last evening in Prague. We had Armenian coffee. We toasted each other over a glass of Mekhitarine (a light herb brandy made by the Armenian Mekhitarist monks in Vienna). And, we talked. We talked about the history of our people. We talked about where we started and how we each got to where we were in life. He showed me the massive Tntesean Hymnal he had bought in Istanbul. He gave me a brief lesson in Hamparsum Nota and he sight read several passages giving me a short lesson in reading the Nota. I was simply amazed and wondered out loud that there might only be ten folks in the world that could do this.  Haig said, "Ten might be too low, but it is probably less than 25."
     From his two books, here the biographical paragraph on Haig:

Haig Utidjian, PhD, MSc(DIC), CAS(GSMD) is an orchestral conductor, chorus master, and musicologist. In his native Cyprus, he was a pupil of Abp Zareh Aznaworean of blessed memory, and is a Senior Deacon of the Armenian Church, with research interest in the musicology and theology of the Armenian Hymnal and in the works of St. Gregory of Narek. He was recently decorated with the Komitas medal by the Armenian state and the Yakop Melapart medal by the National Library of Armenia

     When we met, Haig insisted on talking to me as much as possible in Armenian. My Armenian skills were the limiting factor. He was quite fluent. He is

Haig signing his books

dedicated to preserving Western Armenian and the Church musical tradition of Bolis (Istanbul) rooted in Hampartsum Limondjian, Elia Tntesean, and Archbishop Zareh of blessed memory. He simply lives his life in this manner. It is inspiring and impressive.
      Upon returning home, I got a glimpse of Haig’s family heritage. There was an article in the April 9thNew York Times, “Stoning Gay People? The Sultan of Brunei Doesn’t Understand Modern Islam: The Ottoman Empire was more liberal.” They were quoting an English translation of the Ottoman Penal Code by John Bucknill and Haig Utidjian. Levon noticed this and brought it to Haig’s attention. The Haig Utidjian refered to in this article was a lawyer and the great-grandfather of the Haig I have been writing about here.  There is a long history of Utidjians in the intelligentsia  of the Armenians in Istanbul.
     As I am writing this I am listening to a CD Haig gave me. It is an April 4, 2016 recording of Charles University Orchestra with Maestro Haig conducting. They were performing Komitas/Sahakiants’ Liturgy for Strings. Here is a link to view the concert on YouTube.
     What an amazing fellow! Haig is a gentleman, a scholar, and an amazing and passionate Armenian. Certainly, when the two of us met, we most certainly created a new Armenia.

The Church of the Holy Spirit