Elliot Bannister
Haig Utidjian
inspects the writings that made a nineteenth-century code-breaker the unsung
hero of Armenian church music
The speaker at this evening’s event [October 3, 2013, at the Hye Doon], the first of the academic year hosted by the Programme of Armenian Studies in London, was the researcher, choirmaster and conductor Haig Utidjian. At the beginning of this month in Echmiadzin, he informs us, the Bishops’ Synod of the Armenian Church took place for the first time in six centuries. One of the two major topics on the Catholicos’ agenda was his plans to unify the baptism rite across the Armenian Church, using a tenth-century codex as his inspiration. One of the noticeable aspects about this development, Utidjian says, was the sheer absence of hymns in the ceremony.
