Nikoghos Tahmizian, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Nikoghos Tahmizian

Greek-Armenian historian

Date of Birth: 09-May-1926

Place of Birth: Athens, Attica Region, Greece

Date of Death: 30-Aug-2011

Profession: historian, musicologist

Nationality: United States, Greece, Armenia

Zodiac Sign: Taurus


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About Nikoghos Tahmizian

  • Nikoghos Tahmizian (1926–2011, Armenian: ??????? ?????????; also spelled: Nikogos Tahmizyan) was an Armenian musicologist, theorist and historian.
  • His professional accomplishments were to decipher neumes (khaz) of Armenian church music, analyze the musical theory of old Armenia and research the life and works of Armenian composers from medieval times to modern era.Tahmizian's discoveries in the area of the medieval Armenian notational system open a door to understanding and interpreting the liturgical chants (???????) of the period.
  • His book Modern Neumology (2003) summarizes his forty years of research in the field.
  • Several dozen neumatic symbols have now been revealed, defined, categorized and interpreted as a result of his work. His research into the musical heritage of Armenia revealed and explained the most crucial periods in the history of Armenian music and its notorious representatives.
  • He brought to life the musical contributions of Mesrop Mashtots (5th century), Sahak Partev (Isaac of Armenia, 4th/5th century), Movses Khorenatsi (5th century), Gregory of Narek (Grigor Narekatsi, 10th century), Nerses Shnorhali (12th century), Sayat-Nova (18th century), Makar Yekmalian (19th century), Dikran Tchouhadjian (19th century), Komitas (early 20th century) and others.
  • His work placed an overall historical perspective of the musical development in Armenia from 5th to 20th Centuries.
  • He categorized the period from ancient times to the 12th century as an ascending era, and the timeframe from 13th to 18th centuries as a period of creative decline. He also conducted extensive research into the theory of Armenian music from the pagan era to the church music of the 8th Century A.D.
  • In his defining book entitled 'Theory of Music in Ancient Armenia' (published in Armenia, 1977, in Russian) he interpreted and classified the modal system used during this period.
  • He also analyzed the metric and rhythmic constructs and their formational significance.
  • He explained the uniqueness of the Armenian oktoechos and shed light upon the conceptual and aesthetical issues of the medieval music of Armenia.
  • Moreover, he brought into focus the specific characteristics of the Armenian modes as compared and contrasted with Persian, Arabic, Turkish, as well as Greek, Russian and Caucasian modal systems.Throughout his career, Tahmizian published over a dozen books and around two hundred articles and essays in Armenian, Russian, English, French and Polish.
  • He has also delivered over 60 academic lectures in universities and conservatories throughout the former Soviet Union, as well as London (1978), Rome (1981), Tokyo (1985), Paris (1989), San Francisco (1990) and New York City (1993).
  • He contributed to the Russian Music Encyclopedia (published from 1973 to 1982 in Moscow, six volumes, in Russian), and Armenian Encyclopedia (published from 1974 to 1987 in Yerevan, thirteen volumes, in Armenian).

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