26 September] 1869 – 22 October 1935), was an Ottoman-Armenian priest, musicologist, composer, arranger, singer, and choirmaster, who is considered the founder of the Armenian national school of music.

Komitas settled in Constantinople in 1910 to escape mistreatment by ultra-conservative clergymen at Etchmiadzin and to introduce Armenian folk music to wider audiences.

He was soon released under unclear circumstances and, having witnessed indiscriminate cruelty and relentless massacres of other Armenians by the Ottoman Turks, Komitas experienced a mental breakdown and developed a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The widespread hostile environment in Constantinople and reports of mass-scale Armenian death marches and massacres that reached him further worsened his fragile mental state.

Komitas was born Soghomon Soghomonian in Kütahya, Hüdavendigâr (Bursa) Vilayet, Ottoman Empire on 26 September (8 October in New Style) 1869 to Armenian parents Kevork and Takuhi.

[13][14] According to his autobiographical sketches, his parents' ancestors moved to western Anatolia from the Tsghna village in Nakhichevan's Goghtn province at the turn of the century.

[18] During his first year at the seminary, Komitas learned the Armenian music notation (khaz) system based on ancient neumes developed earlier in the 19th century by Hampartsoum Limondjian and his students.

He gradually discovered a great passion for music and started writing down songs sung by Armenian villagers near Etchmiadzin, who affectionately called him "Notaji Vardapet", meaning "the note-taking priest".

[19] In the early 1890s, Komitas made his first attempts to write music for the poems of Khachatur Abovian, Hovhannes Hovhannisyan, Avetik Isahakyan (his younger classmate) and others.

[13] In 1891, the Ararat magazine (the Holy See's official newspaper) published his "National Anthem" (Ազգային Օրհներգ, lyrics by seminary student A. Tashjian) for polyphonic choirs.

As Komitas prepared for entrance exams, the wealthy Armenian oil explorer Alexander Mantashev agreed to pay 1,800 rubles for his three-year tuition at the request of Catholicos Mkrtich Khrimian.

Fleischer in May 1899 established the Berlin chapter of the International Musical Society (German: Internationalen Musikgesellschaft), of which Komitas became an active member.

[29] "Seeking to bring appreciation of Armenian music to a wider audience",[20] Komitas moved to Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), the Ottoman imperial capital in 1910.

The Turkish nationalist poet Mehmet Emin Yurdakul, the writer Halide Edip and U.S. ambassador Henry Morgenthau intervened with the government, and by special orders from Talat Pasha, Komitas was dispatched back to the capital alongside eight other Armenians who had been deported.

[30] Grigoris Balakian's Armenian Golgotha offers details of his deportation, during which Komitas suffered tremendously and was afflicted with traumatic neurosis.

[31]In the autumn of 1916, he was taken to a hospital in Constantinople, Hôpital de la paix, and then moved to Paris in 1919, where he died in a psychiatric clinic in Villejuif in 1935.

Previously, a granite and bronze statue of Komitas was erected in Detroit in 1981 in honor of the great composer and as a reminder of the tragedy of the Armenian Genocide.

In September 2008, the CD Gomidas Songs, sung by Isabel Bayrakdarian and accompanied by the Chamber Players of the Armenian Philharmonic and pianist Serouj Kradjian, was released on the Nonesuch label.

[33] A major North American tour by Ms. Bayrakdarian in October 2008 featured the music of Komitas, with concerts in Toronto, San Francisco, Orange County, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Boston and New York's Carnegie Hall.

The complete piano works of Komitas are recorded by Şahan Arzruni on Kalan Müzik label in 2010 and remain the definitive interpretation of these compositions.

[35] Modern performers, like Rewşan Çeliker and Pervin Chakar, reinterpret and promote his collected works, ensuring their continued relevance.