Komitas

Soghomon Soghomonian, ordained and commonly known as Komitas, was an Armenian priest, musicologist, composer, arranger, singer, and choirmaster, who is considered the founder of Armenian national school of music. He is recognized as one of the pioneers of ethnomusicology.

Komitas was born Soghomon Soghomonian in Ktahya, Hdavendigr Vilayet, Ottoman Empire onSeptember 1869 to Armenian parents Kevork and Takuhi. According to his autobiographical sketches, his parents ancestors moved to western Anatolia from the Tsghna village in Nakhichevans Goghtn province at the turn of the century. His family only spoke Turkish due to restrictions by the Ottoman government. Soghomon was their only child. He was baptized three days after his birth. His mother was originally from Bursa and was sixteen at the time of his birth. People who knew her described her as melancholic, while his father was a cheerful person but both were interested in music. She died in March 1870, just six months after giving birth to him. Her death left deep scars on him, whose earliest poems were devoted to her. Thereafter, according to different sources, either his fathers sisterinlaw or his paternal grandmother, Mariam, looked after him.

Source: Wikipedia