The Providence Journal
April 18 2015

Musical tribute to victims of Armenian genocide at RIC

It was about three years ago that Rhode Island College pianist Judith
Lynn Stillman started thinking about staging a musical tribute for the
centenary of the massacre of more than a million Armenians at the
hands of the Turks.

By Channing Gray
©Journal Arts Writer
Posted Apr. 19, 2015 at 12:01 AM

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — It was about three years ago that Rhode Island
College pianist Judith Lynn Stillman started thinking about staging a
musical tribute for the centenary of the massacre of more than a
million Armenians at the hands of the Turks. She felt she needed to
turn what for most of us is an abstract moment in history into
something “visceral.”

So she set out to immerse herself in Armenian culture, attending
church services, learning the unique style of the nation’s music, even
patronizing an Armenian butcher shop. She also turned to volumes of
Armenian poems spanning more than 1,000 years that were translated and
in some cases written by the grande dame of Armenian poetry, Diana
Der-Hovanessian.

And from her research came a 30-minute score composed by Stillman
called “When the Music Stopped.” Her “tapestry of songs and texts,” as
she calls the piece, was written in just a couple of weeks last
summer.

“The Armenian genocide is a story that needs to be told,” said
Stillman. “It has been described by some historians as the forgotten
Holocaust that inspired Hitler.”

For her concert Wednesday, Stillman is bringing in Armenian-American
TV actor Armen Garo, from “The Departed” and “American Hustle,” to
narrate, along with a couple of opera singers, and an expert on the
duduk, a recorder-like instrument with a reed that makes a plaintive,
wailing sound.

Trinity Rep’s Curt Columbus will direct and “straighten out the
logistics,” said Stillman.

Stillman’s piece follows something of an arc. The poems and texts she
has chosen begin with the miracle of childhood, then segue into the
horrors of the 1915 massacre, then emerge on a note of hope,
celebrating the resilience and creativeness of the Armenian people.

“I thought about writing a little encore,” said Stillman, “but the
words were so glorious and captivating I couldn’t stop.”

Two free performances of “When the Music Stopped” are slated for
Wednesday in Rhode Island College’s Sapinsley Hall, one at 1 p.m. and
the other at 7:30 p.m. The event will also contain some prayers and
opening remarks from Family Court Chief Judge Haiganush Bedrosian.

Mher Khachatryan’s massacre-inspired paintings, which echo much of
Stillman’s text, will be on view. Stillman said Khachatryan, who lives
in the New York area, will also be on hand painting along with the
music. His images will then be projected on large screens.

But the event is mostly a concert, she said. With a Khachaturian Trio
and Stillman’s own piece, written in 13 parts interspersed with text.
The final three triumphant sections employ choirs.

The 1915 massacre, which lasted for two years and led to the deaths of
1.5 million Ottoman Armenians, over half the population, erupted after
the ethnic group was blamed for the defeat of the Ottomon Empire at
the hands of the Russians in an area that sided with the Russians.
They were considered traitors.

Intellectuals, artists, doctors and businessmen were rounded up and
killed, while women and children were driven into the Syrian desert
with little chance of survival.

The spirit of this sad chapter in history has been captured by
Stillman, longtime artist-in-residence at RIC who seems to have found
her voice as a composer in recent years.

Stillman joined the RIC faculty in 1980 after becoming the
then-youngest pianist to earn a doctorate from Juilliard. She has
played at festivals all over the country and toured Europe and the Far
East.

“From the age of 3,” she said, “I was groomed to be a concert pianist.”

But more and more she has turned to composing, lush tuneful scores
laced with hints of Rachmaninoff and Chopin. In 2012, she produced a
set of songs about the Holocaust based on poems written by children
imprisoned in the Terezin concentration camp that were performed on
public television. And she has just been asked to write the music for
a Canadian documentary.

The title of Stillman’s piece, “When the Music Stopped,” was, by the
way, inspired by a Der-Hovanessian poem by the same name. It’s about
the beloved Armenian composer-priest Komitas, who was so emotionally
scarred by witnessing the genocide of his students that he never again
sang and later died in an institution.

Remembering the Armenian massacre is a powerful reminder not to let
such a tragedy happen again, said Stillman. But she said she wasn’t
interested in getting into politics in her “Armenia 100” event. She
just wanted to honor those who died and celebrate the richness of
Armenian culture.

Wednesday’s concerts, at 1 and 7:30 p.m. in Sapinsley Hall, are free
on a first-come-first-served basis, although a $10 donation is
suggested.