Isabel Bayrakdarian

Armenian church music is the sacred chant and liturgical repertoire of the Armenian Apostolic Church, sung primarily in Classical Armenian (Grabar) and preserved through oral transmission, medieval neumatic (khaz) notation, and later staff transcriptions. It centers on the Divine Liturgy (Badarak), the daily offices, and a vast corpus of hymns known as sharakans. Musically, the tradition is fundamentally monophonic and modal, drawing on an eight-mode (oktoechos) system with characteristically stepwise melodies, narrow to moderate ambitus, and expressive melismas. While the historical tradition is a cappella and unaccompanied, modern choral harmonizations (notably by Makar Yekmalyan and Komitas Vardapet) are also widely performed, carefully respecting the modal flavor of the original chants. The sound is solemn, luminous, and contemplative, with an emphasis on textual clarity, rhetorical pacing, and devotional atmosphere.