For this concert, Armenian folk singers Onnik and Ara Dinkjian are joined by an ensemble of outstanding instrumentalists: Tamer Pinarbasi (kanun), Ismail Lumanovski (clarinet), Pablo Vergara (keyboard), Panagiotis Andreou (bass) and Engin Gunaydin (percussion).

Speaker Biography: Onnik Dinkjian remains America's most renowned Armenian folk and liturgical singer. He has preserved Armenian folk songs from the villages of Anatolia in Eastern Turkey, especially in the unique dialect from his ancestral city of Diyarbekir, known as Dikranagerd to Armenians. Dinkjian is among the last few hundred people who speak this endangered dialect. Onnik Dinkjian was born in Paris in 1929 to parents from Dikranagerd. He was orphaned at an early age and found comfort and happiness in singing, initially in the Armenian Church of Paris. Upon arriving in America in the late 1940s, he began performing at secular functions and quickly became the most-loved singer of the Armenian-American community. He has released recordings of both secular and sacred Armenian music. His fame as a great interpreter of Armenian song has brought him to concert halls throughout Europe, the United States and South America. In addition to his singing, Onnik Dinkjian has composed many songs, some of which are sung in his native dialect.

Speaker Biography: Ara Dinkjian inherited his father's love and passion for Armenian music. American-born, he plays both western and eastern instruments including piano, guitar, dumbeg and clarinet. In 1980, he graduated from the Hartt College of Music, earning the country's first and only special degree in the instrument for which he has become most well-known, the oud (Middle Eastern lute). For more than 40 years, Ara Dinkjian served as organist in the Armenian Apostolic Church. Throughout his musical life, he has continued to develop his highly personal compositional style which blends his eastern and western roots. In 1985, to help realize these compositions and musical concepts, he formed his highly acclaimed instrumental quartet, Night Ark, whose recordings and concerts were highly influential for musicians and music lovers throughout the world because they demonstrated how music can be progressive and creative while still retaining the dignity and soul of one's culture.

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