Besides the obvious religious affiliation, there is also the story of the "Arba Lijoch" children coming to Ethiopia after the Armenian genocide.
Arba Lijoch were a group of 40 Armenian orphans who had escaped from the atrocities in Ottoman Empire, and were afterwards adopted by Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, then Crown Prince Ras Tafari.
They impressed him so much that he obtained permission from the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem to adopt and bring them to Ethiopia, where he then arranged for them to receive musical instruction.
[3] The Arba Lijoch arrived in Addis Ababa in 1924, and along with their bandleader Kevork Nalbandian became the first official orchestra of the nation.
Nalbandian also composed the music for Ethiopia Hoy (words by Yoftehé Negusé), which was the Imperial National Anthem from 1930 to 1974.