ARMENIAN LULLABIES CLASS ‘ORORS’ INTO OAKLAND
By Caitlin Donohue
San Francisco Bay Guardian
lullabies_class_orors.html
Nov 3 2009
CA
Apparently, perusing the "Lullabies of Armenia" Wikipedia entry did
not leave me skilled in that particular musical school. No matter
how many times I explained that oror means "rock," to my boyfriend
(making repeating the word crucial to any decent sleep-inducing ditty
done in grand Armenian style), he was still loath to let me whisper
it in his ear ad infinitum. Oror oror oror oror…
There is no accounting for taste. I am willing to allow, however,
that there may have been an issue with my tone. Which is exactly why I
need Hasmik Harutyunyan’s Armenian lullaby class, which will be held
Saturday in Oakland as an opener to an evening of music as soothing
as a mother’s womb.
"When I sing, my dreams take wing," says Harutyunyan of her haunting
melodies
Her performances, reinvigorations of the rich Armenian tradition of
lullaby, have taken her all over the world. Harutyunyan has staged
concerts with Yo Yo Ma and more recently, Kitka, a Bay Area women’s
vocal ensemble who will play a concert after her attempts at teaching
us mere mortals the skills we need to lull our partners to sleep
after long days of Bay Area rat race.
In Armenia, the songs people sing to soothe their children to sleep
speak volumes of their life during the day. They’re narratives,
expressions of daily goals and traditional folklore. I am told that
one well known theme is that of giving one’s child over to suckle at
the teat of a mother deer, which I have no grounds for understanding
but trust that the message has something to do with earth and nurture.
The recorded versions of the songs are simple and rich affairs with
soft accompaniment by wind instruments or strings, whose strums pack
even more vibration into the undulating, soaring tones of the singer.
Packaged in an language unknown to most of us, this is the perfect
slide into dream world.
"I learn what I can, and I remember when I sing." Harutyunyan seems
to have a grasp of one of humankind’s elemental needs; comfort. Good
on us, Bay Area, that she’s giving us a chance to share in what
she’s learned.
Armenian Lullabies Workshop Sat/7, 4 p.m. (Kitka concert to follow at
8 p.m.), $15-$25 St. Vartan’s Armenian Apostolic Church 650 Spruce,
Oakland (510) 444-0323