Coming
from a family of musicians, Grikor Suni was a relevant name in Armenian
music in the beginning of the twentieth century, and had an important
activity in the United States during the last two decades of his life.
Grikor
Mirzaian Suni was born on September 10, 1876, in the village of
Getabek, in the region of Gandzak (nowadays Ganja, in Azerbaijan). At
the age of two, he and his family moved to Shushi, the capital of
Gharabagh. He enrolled in 1883 in a parish school and lost his father in
the same year.
He
studied from 1891-1895 at the Gevorgian Seminary of Etchmiadzin, where
he was a classmate of Gomidas Vartabed, whom he befriended. After
graduation, he organized a polyphonic choir and gave a concert of
popular songs collected and arranged by him.
After
pursuing private lesson in St. Petersburg from 1895-1898, he received a
scholarship to attend the state conservatory, majoring in music theory
and composition. He had two famed Russian composers, Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov, among his teachers. Meanwhile,
he was hired as choir director of the local Armenian church, and
prepared arrangements of religious music. He graduated in 1904 and
published a collection of popular songs in the same year.
In
the late 1890s, Suni entered the ranks of the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation, where he remained until 1910. He composed the lyrics and
music of the party’s anthem, Mshag panvor.
In
1905 Suni returned to the Caucasus, and taught music at the Nersisian
School of Tiflis until 1908. In 1906 he wrote the operetta Aregnazan, based on lyrics of writer Ghazaros Aghayan, which was staged by the Armenian Theatrical Company of Tiflis.
In
October 1908, fearing political persecution in Russia, Suni escaped to
the Ottoman Empire with his family. He first settled in Trebizond
(Trabzon), and organized concerts of Armenian choral and orchestral
music in the region. In 1910 he moved to Erzerum, where he taught at the
Sanasarian School during the next four years. He also continued
collecting folk songs and dances, and organizing choirs.
At
the breakout of World War I, the composer moved back to Tiflis, where
he continued teaching and directing. He was also one of the founding
members of the Society of Armenian Musicologists. After a sojourn in
Tehran (1919-1920), he returned to Tiflis, but his poor health led him
to move to Constantinople (1921), where he taught music and choral
singing at several schools, and conducted a choir. Months after the
Ottoman capital had been occupied by the Kemalist forces, in September
1923 Suni and his family arrived in the United States and settled in
Philadelphia.
During
the next decade and a half, the composer, who had adopted a pro-Soviet
outlook as a result of his ideological affinities, participated actively
in the artistic life of the Armenian American community, particularly
on the East Coast. He also continued composing. A collection of choir
music was published in Yerevan, in 1935.
Grikor
Suni passed away in Philadelphia on December 18, 1939. Several
fascicles containing songs by him were posthumously published in the
1940s in Philadelphia. One of his grandsons is historian Ronald Grigor
Suny, professor of History at the University of Michigan.
