LATE VAHE ASLANIAN WAS DEDICATED TO BRINGING THE FULLEST POSSIBLE EXPERIENCE OF MUSIC TO HIS STUDENTS AND AUDIENCES
Barbara Rose Shuler
The Monterey County Herald
June 19 2008
CA
Vahe Aslanian — titan of music and founder of Camerata Singers —
died peacefully on May 15.
Survived by his wife Charlotte aka Dean, his daughter Cynthia and two
sons Charles and Greg, Aslanian left a rich legacy of music-making
and appreciation to the region.
Born in 1918, his career spanned most of the 20th century. In an era
complicated by too much music "to be seen and not heard," Aslanian
was dedicated to bringing the fullest possible experience of music
to his students and audiences.
"Music does not have any value whatsoever until it’s performed and
heard," he declared.
As a scholar, he was a boundless and fascinating well of
information. He was a passionate and demanding music director,
delivering to the Central Coast decades of great choral music spanning
five centuries. And he was a highly respected and dedicated educator.
Aslanian was born in Massachusetts and began his study of music at
the age of 7. His first professional singing engagement came at age
10, when he sang as a boy soprano soloist in Boston. He received his
bachelor’s degree in music from Boston University in 1940, masters
from Claremont Graduate School in California in 1950 and his doctorate
from Stanford University in 1965.
His career spanned seven decades, during which time he served as
a musicologist, choral conductor, educator, editor and choral and
piano adjudicator.
According to Joan Lam, a friend and singer with Camerata Singers,
Aslanian
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set high goals for himself throughout his life and succeeded beyond
his expectations.
During World War II, he served in the Army. While stationed in Oregon,
he met his wife, Charlotte-Deane Ellingsworth "over a hard-boiled
egg" and married her four months later before his deployment to the
Pacific Front.
He served in the Philippines, was a decorated combat veteran and was
discharged at the rank of captain.
In 1955, he took his place as one of 12 choral conductors selected
from around the world to study at the Berkshire Music Festival at
Tanglewood, Mass.
As a Fulbright Scholar, in the company of his family, he studied at
the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella in Naples, Italy, in 1958,
concentrating on the sacred choral works of Leonardo Leo, an 18th
century composer of the Neopolitan school.
The Aslanian family returned to Tanglewood where he conducted Leo’s
Mass in D Major, which he had transcribed and edited in Italy.
He led the Berkshire Music Festival Choir and Orchestra in the
performance and recalls the evening as one of the brightest and
proudest moments of his career.
Another source of pride for Aslanian came while doing research at
the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin, Italy.
He discovered the manuscript of Vivaldi’s Chamber Mass "Kyrie" composed
about 1690. Until he brought it to light in the 20th century, it had
lain forgotten.
He edited, published, and presented its premiere performance with
the Hartnell Community Chorus in Carmel and Salinas in 1965. Aslanian
taught at Hartnell College from 1950 to 1980.
He was founder and director of the Hartnell College Conservatory of
Music, Hartnell College Choir, Chamber and Madrigal Singers, Salinas
Boy’s Chorus, and Hartnell Community Chorus.
Aslanian put his force behind the building of the college’s Performing
Arts Center and to securing musical instruments.
He even traveled to Boston to select a Steinway concert grand piano
for the school.
When Aslanian retired as music director of Camerata Singers in 1999, he
had been making music in California for more than 50 years. His bright
choral legacy with Camerata continues with his successor John Koza.
Over the years, like many in the region, I have had memorable
encounters with Aslanian and his music.
>>From time to time, he would call me, usually in a buoyant mood,
to add to my musical knowledge or update me on something he was
working on.
One day he responded to a piece I had written about a set of Italian
madrigals that had been performed that week in Carmel.
Citing resources and scholarly writings, he drew my attention
to erotically explicit meanings contained within the text of the
madrigals that had completely eluded me. We enjoyed a good laugh.
My most memorable experience of Aslanian and his music, however, was a
performance of Mozart ‘s "Requiem," which Camerata Singers dedicated to
the victims of a terrible earthquake that had taken place in Armenia.
I have heard many performances of this work, both recorded and
performed, including live versions with the London Philharmonic
Orchestra and the Carmel Bach Festival.
None touched me as powerfully as that Camerata benefit performance,
which as I recall took place at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, where
services will be held for Aslanian this Saturday.
It wasn’t the perfection of the musicmaking that moved me, though
it was a fine reading of the work, so much as the spirit in which it
was presented.
There was a palpable sense that the music of the "Requiem" itself
was being delivered by some invisible force to the earthquake victims
themselves as a healing balm.
It was more than a fundraising benefit. The concert was a gift of
the heart, a passionate prayer in service to the people of Armenia.
That invisible healing force was something that came right out of
Aslanian, went into the singers, out to the audience and beyond to
ones who needed it.
When I read Aslanian’s words, "Music does not have any value whatsoever
until it’s performed and heard," that is where my memory goes, to
that church, to that moment and the Mozart "Requiem."
Services will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday at St. Paul’s Episcopal
Church, 1071 Pajaro St. (at San Miguel), in Salinas. GO!