Celebrity Deathwatch: Alan Hovhaness, Composer, 89

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/Arts/06/22/hovhaness.obituary.ap/index.html

Composer Hovhaness dead at 89

June 22, 2000
Web posted at: 3:58 PM EDT (1958 GMT)


SEATTLE (AP) -- Alan Hovhaness, a prolific composer who melded Western and
Asian musical styles to create a unique melodic blend of his own, died
Wednesday. He was 89.

Hovhaness died at Swedish Medical Center, according to Gerard Schwarz, music
director of the Seattle Symphony. Hovhaness had been a composer-in-residence
with the orchestra. Schwarz said Hovhaness had suffered from a severe
stomach ailment for the last three years.

"His music reflects the kind of gentle, wonderful soul that he was, but also
has the turbulence that one sees in an eruption of a volcano or a tremendous
thunderstorm," Schwarz said.

Hovhaness wrote more than 400 pieces, including at least nine operas, two
ballets, more than 60 symphonies, and more than 100 chamber pieces.

His works include "Lousadzak" (1944), for piano and orchestra; "Wind Drum"
(1962), a music-dance drama; "And God Created the Great Whales" (1970); and
"The Way of Jesus" (1974), a folk Mass.

He was born Alan Vaness Chamakjian, in Somerville, Massachusetts, in 1911.
His mother was Scottish and his father, an Armenian chemistry professor.

Hovhaness demonstrated musical precociousness at an early age, devising his
own method of notation by age 5. Three years later, he began studying piano
with Adelaide Proctor and later took instruction from Heinrich Gebhard.

In 1932, he went to the New England Conservatory on a scholarship and for
two years studied composition there with Frederick Converse.

His early compositions were thoroughly Western. But the influences of
Eastern musical styles became more evident after he attended Bohuslav
Martinu's master class in composition in 1942 at the Berkshire Music Center
at Tanglewood.

Hovhaness was the first Western composer asked to write music for an
orchestra comprised entirely of Indian instruments. He served for six months
as composer-in-residence at the University of Hawaii and became a
composer-in-residence with the Seattle Symphony in 1966.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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