Komitas

Soghomon Gevorgi Soghomonyan (Սողոմոն Գևորգի Սողոմոնյան), commonly known as Komitas Vardapet (Կոմիտաս Վարդապետ, by Western Armenian transliteration also Gomidas Vartabed) or simply Komitas, 1869 – October 22, 1935, was an Armenian priest, composer, choir leader, singer, music ethnologist, music pedagogue and musicologist.

Many regard him as the founder of modern Armenian classical music. Soghomon (Gevorgi) Soghomonyan was born into a family whose members were deeply involved in music and were monolingual in Turkish. His mother died when he was one, and his father died ten years later. His grandmother looked after him until 1881, when a prelate of the local Armenian diocese went to Echmiadzin to be consecrated a bishop.

The catholicos Gevork IV ordered him to bring one orphaned child to be educated at the Echmiadzin Seminary. Soghomon was chosen among 20 candidates and admitted into the seminary (where he impressed the catholicos with his singing talent) and graduated in 1893, after which he became a monk. According to church tradition, newly ordained priests are given new names, and Soghomon was renamed Komitas (named after the seventh-century Armenian catholicos who was also a hymn writer). Two years later, he was elevated in rank to archimandrite and obtained the title Vardapet (or Vartabed), meaning a "doctor of the church" or "divine scholar".