S1E8 Sylvia Alajaji: Of Memory, Music, and the Armenian Diaspora

Ethnomusicologist and author Dr. Alajaji joins the podcast to discuss the connection between memory and music as it relates to maintaining ethnic identity. Alajaji recounts her own personal experiences being raised as an Armenian in Tulsa, Oklahoma while listening to mix tapes, Adiss Harmandian, and Harout Pamboukjian. She also touches on the  “estradayin”, Ottoman influenced “kef”, and pop genres of music produced and consumed within Diasporan Armenian communities.

Guest Biography

Sylvia Angelique Alajaji is an Associate Professor of Music at Franklin & Marshall College, where she also teaches in the International Studies program. She is the author of “Music and the Armenian Diaspora: Searching for Home in Exile” (Indiana University Press, 2015), a multi-sited work that examines the construction of diasporic Armenian subjectivity in the years since the Armenian genocide (recently published in Turkish translation). Her published work centers on the relationship between music and exilic identity, focusing primarily on Armenian diasporic communities in Lebanon and the United States. In the spring of 2021, she will serve as the Dumanian Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies at the University of Chicago.

Featured Music

Adiss Harmandian- “Nune” (1988, Voice of Stars CD, Greatest Hits- Grand Success)

Adiss Harmandian- “Karoun, Karoun” (1972, A Disc 45)

Richard Hagopian and the Kef Time Band- “Konyali” (1968, Saha LP, Kef Time Las Vegas)

Harout Pamboukjian- “Ghapama” (1983, Pe-Ko CD, Heratsadz Engerner)

Joe Bedrosian- “Yankee Doodle” (1939, Library of Congress, field recordings by Sidney Robertson Cowell)

All songs featured on this podcast are either public domain, by express permission by the label, and/or licensed for the express use on this podcast episode.