Komitas

Soghomon Soghomonian, ordained as Komitas Vardapet, was born on October 8, 1869, in Kütahya. After studying at the Gevorkian Seminary in Etchmiadzin, he pursued advanced musicology and composition at the Frederick William University in Berlin, mastering European choral counterpoint.

Komitas traveled through rural villages transcribing centuries-old Armenian folk songs, sacred liturgical chants, and peasant work songs, saving an ancient musical civilization from extinction. Arrested in Constantinople on April 24, 1915, during the Armenian Genocide, he survived deportation but suffered debilitating psychological trauma, spending his remaining two decades in psychiatric care in Paris.