Fred Elias & Buddy Sarkissian – Outtakes from Magic Fingers Play Cleopatra’s Favorites & Hellenic Near East Gems: Near Eastern Music in New England ca. 1957

From Canary Records’ Bandcamp Site: “These recordings were released on Aris/Aristophone in the early ’60s on two LPs, tracks 1-8 from the album Magic Fingers Play Cleopatra’s Favorites and tracks 9-14 from an album divided between them and the Greek clarinettist George Mirros titled Hellenic Near East Gems. Both seem Continue Reading

Lucy Khanyan Quartet – Komitas Through the Eyes of Lucy Khanyan Quartet

Soghomon Soghomonian, the priest, ethnomusicologist and arranger who would be later known to millions of Armenian music aficionados as Komitas (Vardapet), is a figure who looms large in the history of the country’s music scene.  Avant-garde pianist Lucy Khanyan does great justice to some of the works of Komitas, interpreting Continue Reading