Armenia’s musical heritage is marked by powerful vocal traditions, ancient sacred music, and the haunting voice of the duduk, while Armenian composers have also shaped the wider region’s classical repertoire.
Armenia is situated close to the Caucasus Mountains, and its music is a mix of indigenous folk music, perhaps best-represented by Djivan Gasparyan's well-known duduk music, as well as light pop, and extensive Christian music, due to Armenia's status as the oldest Christian nation in the world.
Traditional Armenian folk music as well as Armenian church music is not based on the European tonal system but on a system of tetrachords.[1] The last note of one tetrachord also serves as the first note of the next tetrachord - making the scale on which a lot of Armenian folk music is more or less based a theoretically endless scale.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia’s “Music of Armenia” article.
Jivan Gasparyan’s performance with one hundred duduk players surrounds the Armenian double-reed instrument’s intimate, vocal-like tone with extraordinary communal power.
“Karcigar Peşrev” reflects the legacy of Armenian composer Tatyos Efendi within the Ottoman classical tradition shared across the region.