Symbiosis - Greek, Assyrian, Kurdish music on the Armenian Plateau - Produced by the Naregatsi Art Institute

The CD album includes dance tunes that exist with different variations within the communities of Greeks, Kurds and Assyrians living side by side with the Armenians in Eastern and Western Armenia. The culture of each nation has been influenced by the others in the same time keeping its own identity. It also includes some Kurdish, Greek and Assyrian music that has reached us through 20th century greatest musicians Komitas and G.I. Gurdjieff.

G. I. Gurdjieff, a world's famous Armenian mystic philosopher, a teacher of sacred dances, musician and a spiritual teacher, the greatest intellectual, was born in 1866 in Alexandrapol (Giumry). He has a rich repertoire with roots in Caucasian and Central Asian folk and religious music.

Komitas was an Armenian composer, music ethnologist, singer, music pedagogue, priest and musicologist. He was born on October 8, 1869 in Kutahya, Ottoman Empire. In the period of 1881-1893 he studied in the Echmiadzin Gevorkian Seminary, and then continued his studies in the Berlin "Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm" University. Komitas is regarded as the founder of modern Armenian classical music. He died in Paris on October 22, 1935. Komitas also collected and studied Kurdish, Greek, Assyrian and other peoples’ music.

The CD was released thanks to the grant from the OSI Arts and Culture Network Program and under the support of the Naregatsi Art Institute.