Experiencing Armenian Music in Turkey: An Ethnography of Musicultural
Memory is structured to explore different domains of cultural memory
encoded in and conveyed through Armenian musicking practices. Burcu
Yildiz discusses the sounds, performance practices and discourses in
terms of her personal journey and multi-sited ethnographic experiences
rather than as an attempt to describe Armenian music in Turkey. The
author offers a critical look at various issues including historical
framework on the possibilities of expression concerning Armenian music
in Turkey; yerki bari khump (Song and Dance Ensemble) performances and
choir singing as a cultural recovery of Istanbul Armenians; Gomidas
Vartabed's legacy and the notion of 'the authenticity of Armenian
music'; the performance of 'homeland' in diaspora via the musical
identity and life story of Onnik Dinkjian; and the process of
'constructing self' by means of musical representation of Arto
Tuncboyaciyan. Through in-depth ethnographic analysis, Yildiz sheds
light on the musical plurality and thereby endeavor to understand the
influence of hybridity and transnational circulation on Armenian music.
The issue of Armenian musicking, which the author has discussed as
carrier of cultural memory and a performative compound of identity, is
simultaneously an expression of the loss experienced in 1915, and a
means of dealing with that loss. The book will be of interest to the
students and academics not only in ethnomusicology but also anthropology
and cultural studies.
