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THE INTEGRATED GLOBAL CREATIVE ECONOMY
I CURATE

This is the Universe of

Name: Armen Donelian
City/Place: New York City
Country: United States

CURATION

from this node by: Matrix+

Life & Work

Bio: "The best time to learn music,” says pianist Armen Donelian, “is when you’re young, while the brain synapses are still open and fresh.

I started playing by ear when I was 5 or 6, and started classical piano lessons when I was about 7 at the Westchester Conservatory of Music. I was lucky to have parents who supported my musical aspiration.”

As a child, Armen absorbed the sound of Armenian, Turkish, Greek and Middle Eastern music at social gatherings and from records his father played at home. “Our home was multicultural long before that phrase became politically correct,” he relates.

Armen trained as a concert pianist at the Westchester Conservatory of Music in White Plains, NY with director Michael Pollon. “Michael was my second father, for music,” Donelian recalls. His studies lasted for twelve years and included regular solo recitals and several concertos with local symphonies, culminating in a 1968 graduation recital featuring works by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy and Prokofiev.

At thirteen, Donelian joined a group led by Jazz guitarist Arthur Ryerson, Sr., and things were never quite the same afterward. Captivated by the Jazz feeling, he began listening to the masters - Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. “Folk, Rock, Dixieland, Jazz, Church, Show and Society music – I played them all while growing up,” says Donelian.

“In college, I made money by accompanying theater and dance classes, providing cocktail music at a restaurant on campus and playing and arranging for an 8-piece Jazz/Rock band. After graduation, I had no gigs, no direction, and lived at home for a few months. My ex-girlfriend’s mother told me, ‘Armen, nothing is going to happen unless you make it happen.’ So, after graduating from Columbia University in 1972, I started teaching kids’ piano lessons at the Conservatory to make money. I moved to Washington Heights in NYC and started knocking on doors.”

Starting in 1973, Donelian apprenticed for two years with pianist Richie Beirach, one of the strongest musical voices on the New York scene. He learned how to meld his Classical training with his instinct for Jazz improvisation and composition. “This was a pivotal moment in my development,” Donelian recalls.

“Richie provided an artistic paradigm to emulate, social access to top musicians in NYC and vital information about recordings and scores. I observed his live gigs as learning models. My roommate was a bassist, Mike Bocchicchio, who studied with Frank Tusa, Richie’s bassist. Together we practiced examples from composer Paul Hindemith’s book Elementary Training For Musicians, organized jam sessions and formed a mutually supportive camaraderie.

Around this time, Donelian made a blind call to the William Morris agency in New York seeking gainful employment. “The agent offered me an accompanying job at a singers’ showcase at the Monkey Bar in the Hotel Elysée. I networked with singers, leading to a good deal of arranging work. It was a period of freelancing, composing and touring with country rock singer/guitarist Bob Sanders.” On the road, Donelian had free time to practice and listen to music and transcribe solos.

Back in New York, Donelian led a trio that included Bocchicchio and drummer Chris Braun, who studied with drummer Jeff Williams. Although other career options were open to him, Donelian committed to a musical career. “With persistence and luck I found my way, although I believe that luck is a by-product of persistence,” he maintains.

”In 1975, I moved downtown, two blocks from the Village Vanguard. I started actively going to clubs, hanging out and rehearsing with other musicians. Then, through one of my students, it happened - I auditioned for and was hired to play with Mongo Santamaria and the rest is history.”

Armen Donelian broke into the Jazz world with Santamaria’s vibrant Afro-Cuban Jazz octet. Several North American tours and recordings ensued, including Santamaria’s Afro-Indio and Sofrito that includes three Donelian compositions and was nominated for a 1976 Grammy Award as the Best Latin Jazz Album. Donelian also performed on Mongo and Justo and A La Carte.

“I joined Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians and soon was playing on TV, radio, records, having my compositions recorded and touring nationally and internationally.” With guidance from Beirach, bassist Gene Perla and information Donelian obtained from a book called This Business of Music, he established a publishing company and started collecting royalties from Broadcast Music Inc. and the American Mechanical Rights Association.

Around this time, Donelian attended a music business workshop led by Cobi Narita of the Universal Jazz Coalition. “I learned how to write grants and press releases,” Donelian recollects, “start and maintain a mailing list, make a flyer using Prestype (the cutting edge design technology of the day), send out bulk mailings using postage metering and a rubber stamp and an ink pad for the return address. I learned how to develop relations with critics and members of the press, how to approach venues to get hired. Most importantly, I learned how to create my own concerts at any type of venue – nursing homes, old age homes, churches, social clubs, schools etc. I and many other artists of my generation owe a lot to Cobi.”

In subsequent years, Donelian mastered the Jazz arts through engagements and recordings with saxophonist Sonny Rollins (1977-8), trumpeter Chet Baker (1977 and 1983-5), saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera (1984-5), vocalist Anne-Marie Moss (1979-84) and many others. During his tenure with saxophonist Billy Harper (1979-83), Donelian received his first taste of international recognition (Europe, Japan, Soviet Union and Middle East) and recording Trying To Make Heaven My Home, The Believer, The Billy Harper Quintet and Jazz Jamboree with Harper.

In 1978, Donelian moved into Manhattan Plaza, a subsidized housing project for performing artists, further enabling networking opportunities. “I developed a sense of belonging to the performing arts community,” Donelian beams. “My next-door neighbor, Charles Mingus, invited me to collaborate on his recording project with Joni Mitchell. Dexter Gordon rang my doorbell to tell me he enjoyed hearing my playing in hallway outside my door. Jack Walrath, Alex Foster, Harold Ashby and Horacee Arnold were frequent session partners. It led to more NYC gigs and solo, duo, trio concerts. It was a magical and fulfilling period in my life.”

During this period, Donelian also composed and led groups in New York area venues. “In 1980, I produced and recorded my first album with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Billy Hart. I sent out thirty demos to record labels. Most of them ignored the package. After numerous second attempts, I received two or three responses, still negative, and one yes.”

In 1981, Stargazer finally was released in Japan on Atlas Records. It was a lesson in persistence that eventually paid off. The LP received warm praise for its Wonderful tension and Donelian’s Uncommon talent as a composer (Swing Journal). However, as an import the record went unreviewed by the American press.

Still, in 1983 Donelian produced a debut release concert at Carnegie Recital Hall accompanied by Gomez and Hart. It was attended by and even written up by Jon Pareles, the New York Times’ music critic. The concert was a success, but Pareles’ piece was scrapped by the editor in favor of a review of a Philip Glass concert, citing a space shortage.

Discouraged and concerned about his financial future, Donelian considered enrolling in a fledgling computer science program at Columbia University and abandoning his musical career. “I passed the initial admission test and was called for an interview,” Donelian recounts. “After examining my resume, the interviewer asked me why I wanted to enroll in the program.” Donelian replied that he was concerned about making a living in music. “Oh, but we think that you should stay in music,” he was told. “You’re doing so well.” And so Donelian stayed the course, and his fate as a musician was sealed.

In 1984, Donelian recorded a second album of solo piano music. “I shopped it to several companies. Francois Zalacain had just started a new label called Sunnyside and he picked it up.” A Reverie, Donelian’s solo debut, was released 1986 in the USA and France. It’s a masterpiece said Swing Jazz Journal in a glowing review. Donelian says, “I’ve been with Francois for almost thirty years and released ten albums on Sunnyside. I was always able to talk with Francois. His dedication and independence has earned my respect and gratitude as they have from every artist on his label.”

Concurrently, Donelian began harmony and counterpoint studies in the tradition of Arnold Schoenberg with clarinetist and master microtonal composer Harold Seletsky. Several fugues and motets resulted. The lessons with Seletsky also had a marked bearing on Donelian’s Jazz writing. A composer of 100 works, Donelian’s works are published by Advance Music and Sher Music, and recorded by Mongo Santamaria and Rory Stuart.

From 1980-87, Donelian made frequent tours to Europe to perform with a Norwegian trio including bassist Carl Morten Iversen and drummer Audun Kleive. After an exhausting three-week summer tour of Scandinavia, they recorded and released a CD under the auspices of the Norwegian Jazz Federation, Trio ‘87 (Odin), One of the great unsung piano recordings of the 80’s (Cadence). “It received outstanding reviews in Norway,” Donelian acknowledges, “and is probably one of my best records. Sadly, as with Stargazer, due to its foreign origin it was ignored by the American press.”

During this period, Donelian led groups with saxophonists Dick Oatts or Liebman, trumpeter Barry Danielian, bassists Ratzo Harris or Harvie Swartz or Ed Schuller, drummers Keith Copeland or Bob Moses, and sometimes with percussionist Arto Tunçboyaciyan. In 1988, Donelian released a highly rated quintet CD on Sunnyside featuring Oatts, Danielian, bassist Anthony Cox, drummer Bill Stewart and Tunçboyaciyan, Secrets, #3 Jazz Album of 1988 in the Jazz Hot Critics’ Poll with special mention for its Epic musicality. Another with the same unit followed in 1990, The Wayfarer, praised as Downright haunting (Downbeat).

In addition to performing and composing, Donelian has been active as a teacher since his teens. In the early 1980’s, Donelian met and played with saxophonist Arnie Lawrence, founder of the New School Jazz Program. “In 1986, Arnie invited me to teach in the program, and I’ve been there ever since,” Donelian states. The faculty unionized in 1995, providing some measure of job security in an ever-challenging music business climate. In 1993, Donelian also began teaching at William Paterson University and he continues to lecture at both schools.

Always proud of his Armenian heritage, in 1986 Donelian co-led a quintet recording Positively Armenian with reedman Souren Baronian, featuring drummer Paul Motian, Danielian, Tunçboyaciyan and bassist Ralph Hamperian. Donelian later joined Night Ark, a stunning Middle Eastern Jazz fusion group led by oudist Ara Dinkjian during the 1980’s and 90’s, appearing on the recordings Moments, In Wonderland and Petals On Your Path and performing in Switzerland, Italy, Israel, Greece, Turkey, Armenia and the USA with Tunçboyaciyan and either Ed Schuller or Marc Johnson on bass. As an arranger and pianist, Donelian accompanied Armenian Jazz vocalist Datevik Hovanesian from 1990-2000 in performances in the USA, France and Armenia. Their album Listen To My Heart with saxophonists Paquito D’Rivera and Alex Foster, drummers Portinho and Ben Riley, bassist David Finck and percussionists Tunçboyaciyan and Steve Berrios, was produced by George Avakian and released in France on the Sony label. Once again, as an overseas product, American media disregarded it.

Donelian led a fiery quartet with the alto saxophonist Thomas Chapin in the mid-1980s. “In 1991, I suffered a traumatic accident to my hand, requiring surgery and a long recovery,” Donelian relates. ”Thomas was the only person who looked in on me during my recovery. I’ll never forget his kindness.”

Donelian’s first recording following his accident was made with Chapin in 1992, a thrilling live set from their gig at New York’s Visiones nightclub. After a long label search, in 2003 Playscape Recordings issued Quartet Language, six years after Chapin’s tragic and premature death from leukemia. Bassist Calvin Hill and drummer Jeff Williams ably assisted in igniting An acrid alchemy [that] festers among these players, especially Donelian and Chapin (All About Jazz).

In 1993, Donelian was hired to teach in guitarist Attila Zoller’s Vermont Jazz Center summer program, upon the recommendation of pianist Harold Danko, then a New School colleague and fellow Sunnyside artist. “Through Zoller, I met saxophonist Fred Haas who, with his wife Sabrina, started the Interplay Summer Jazz Camp in 1997. Fred is great. I’ve taught there ever since,” Donelian affirms.

In 1997-8, Donelian recorded the highly acclaimed solo piano trilogy, Grand Ideas, A beautiful and personal recording (Fred Hersch, from the liner notes), representing Donelian's lifetime devotion to the piano, composition and improvisation. With support from a 2000 Fellowship in Music Composition from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Sunnyside Records released the set: Volume 1-Wave: Standards; in 2002, Volume 2 - Mystic Heights: Original Compositions; and in 2005, Volume 3 - Full Moon Music: Improvisations.

Donelian received four Jazz Performance Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts to lead the Rhythm Section Plus One master class series in New York. Donelian earned praise for this free creative artistic/educational venture. From 1990 to 1996, the series presented over 55 prominent Jazz masters including Dewey Redman, Jim Hall and David Liebman with Donelian as the host and pianist.

Donelian is a noted author. Training the Ear (first published in English by Advance Music, 1992 and later in Japanese by ATN, Inc., 2001) grew out of his classroom work and has been called The most clearly organized and comprehensive package of its type (Rutgers Annual Review of Jazz Studies, 1994-5). The book has been adopted as a required text in many schools. Advance also published Training the Ear Vol. Two (2003); and, Whole Notes: A Piano Masterclass (2011). In 2012, Schott Music acquired the Advance catalogue. Donelian’s articles on ear training and chord voicings have been published in Downbeat (1997- 8, 2005) and Keyboard (1997) magazines and the Rutgers Annual Review of Jazz Studies (1997). Donelian is mentioned in Growing Up With Jazz (by W. Royal Stokes), The Bear Comes Home (by Raffi Zabor), Buddhist Acts Of Compassion (Pamela Bloom) and others.

In 1998, Donelian first traveled to Armenia to perform in the first Yerevan International Jazz Festival, and to teach the first-ever Jazz master classes at the Yerevan State Conservatory.

With support from a CEC/Artslink grant and the Hovnanian Armenian School (NJ), in 1999 Donelian launched the Jazz in Armenia Project, an artistic, educational and intercultural initiative in this land- locked nation. As Visiting Professor of Jazz for several years, Donelian led master classes and impromptu workshops, giving solo piano concerts and appearing with resident musicians at local venues and in concerts honoring humanitarian efforts in rural areas of Armenia.

In 2002, Donelian was named a Fulbright Senior Scholar in support of his ongoing work in Armenia. He taught as Professor of Jazz at the Yerevan Conservatory for one semester, performing in major venues including Yerevan Philharmonic Hall under the auspices of Jazz Appreciation Month (a State Department program).

During his Fulbright visit, Donelian also traveled to Russia, Georgia, Romania and France to perform and lecture at conservatories in St. Petersburg, Tbilisi, Iasi, Cluj and Paris. These activities were made possible by support from the US State Department and the Romanian Fulbright Commission. Donelian appeared as a featured solo pianist in the Kannon Jazz and Modern Dance Festival (Russia), the Richard Oshanitzsky Jazz Festival (Romania) and in a command performance for Hon. Richard and Mrs. Sharon Miles, American Ambassador to Georgia.

Donelian returned to Armenia on several occasions: In 2003, for six weeks to teach as a Fulbright Senior Specialist; in 2004, with support from a second CEC/Artslink grant to teach and perform; in 2007, appearing with the quartet of percussionist Bobby Sanabria by special invitation of the American Embassy in Yerevan; and in 2011, to give a duo concert with Armenian native saxophonist Armen Hyusnounts at the Cafesjian Center for the Arts.

As a Fulbright Senior Specialist, Donelian also traveled to Finland (2004), Switzerland (2005), Sweden (2006) and Greece (2009). For three consecutive years (2009-11), Donelian was invited to adjudicate graduation juries and recitals at the Zurich University of the Arts (Switzerland). In 2009, with his colleagues in Zurich, pianist Adrian Frey, and at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory (Denmark), pianist Nikolaj Hess, Donelian initiated a series of annual academic exchanges with his home institutions, the New School and William Paterson University.

As an ear training and piano curriculum advisor to the Israel Conservatory, Donelian traveled to that country for three consecutive summers (2009-11) to oversee the development and implementation of their fledgling Shtricker Jazz and Contemporary Music Program in cooperation with The New School. In 2010, Donelian was invited along with four other faculty members from William Paterson University on an historic visit to Palestine’s Edward Said National Conservatory of Music to present a series of concerts and workshops. A few months later, Donelian returned to the Al Kamandjâti Summer Music Camp in Beit Jala, Palestine to teach Jazz to children from the refugee camps.

“In 2000, as a sub for Dave Liebman at Manhattan School of Music, I met Marc Mommaas,” Donelian narrates. In 2002, they began a partnership when Donelian invited his former student to perform in a concert honoring the victims of 9/11. Due to their friendship and musical chemistry, Donelian and Mommaas continue to perform as well as teach together. In 2006, Donelian released All Or Nothing At All (Sunnyside), a live duo concert CD made with Mommaas in 2003 at the New School Jazz Performance Space in New York, along with liner notes penned by Liebman. The recording received an outstanding review from Downbeat: Their deeply intuitive connection is its own reward...When Mommaas solos [Donelian] seems plugged right into his brain waves, perpetually altering his accompaniment to propel and caress the saxophone lines.

In 2007, Donelian and Mommaas started the Hudson Jazz Workshop, attracting students from around the globe. In 2009, they founded the non- profit Hudson Jazzworks, Inc. to help support the evolution of this educational initiative.

While a member of Night Ark, Donelian performed in a Boston concert produced by drummer George Schuller, son of the late composer Gunther Schuller. In 1994, Donelian met and taught with David Clark, Professor of Bass at the Berklee College of Music, at the Vermont Jazz Center. The trio has grown close since they began playing regularly in 2004. Donelian’s 2008 release Oasis (Sunnyside) eloquently documents their empathetic chemistry, causing Jazz Times to remark: When Donelian sits down to make a piano trio record, he does not wear his academic erudition or his ethnicity or even his chops on his sleeve. Instead he blends his influences into a seamless, balanced whole. Oasis quickly establishes a high level of musical discourse and never falters from it.

As a composing and playing vehicle, Donelian has a longstanding attraction to the quintet format as shown previously on Secrets and The Wayfarer. In the early 2000s, this fascination strongly reasserted itself through inspiration received from his student- turned-colleague, Mommaas; and from two other former pupils, drummer Tyshawn Sorey and guitarist Mike Moreno, both rising stars of their generation. Donelian composed an intricate, dense body of work inspired by their prowess, rounding out the group with veteran bassist and longtime colleague Dean Johnson. After rehearsing and performing in several New York-area venues, in 2011 Donelian produced Leapfrog (Sunnyside), of which All About Jazz declared: Leapfrog proves to be light years beyond many other albums that wear the modern jazz label, because the individual contributions and the confluence of the group are of equal value, and Donelian deserves plaudits for balancing that equation and producing such a work.

Donelian first encountered Armenian music as a child, then in his professional work in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and again in Armenia. As the Leapfrog band was gestating and Donelian’s Oasis trio was in full swing, Donelian began experimenting with the classic, revered songs of the 18th Century Armenian troubadour, Sayat-Nova. He had obtained sheet music for them in Armenia in 2002 and studied them at home for over 10 years, arranging and performing them in both solo piano and trio formats with longtime partners Clark and Schuller. Audiences in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and elsewhere received these interpretations with enthusiasm. In 2014, Donelian released them on his 13th album, Sayat-Nova: Songs Of My Ancestors (Sunnyside), of which Downbeat observed: Armen Donelian has prepared a deeply felt – and often strikingly beautiful – tribute to this distant master. There are countless exquisite moments to be found within these extended meditations.

Contact Information

Email: armen(dot)donelian(at)gmail(dot)com
Contact by Webpage: http://www.armendonelian.com/contact
Telephone: (518) 822-1640
Address: 338 Kipp Road, Hudson, NY 12534 USA

Media | Markets

▶ Buy My Music: (downloads/CDs/DVDs) http://www.armendonelian.com/store
▶ Charts/Scores: http://www.armendonelian.com/store
▶ Book Purchases: http://www.armendonelian.com/store
▶ Website: http://www.armendonelian.com
▶ YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfNjyMZinJ-jNWy2fZ7q2ow
▶ YouTube Music: http://music.youtube.com/channel/UCw12Y_RBjvqk_gddD1i-yzQ
▶ Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/0AdM4U8s9cWllA8gAWFPTq
▶ Spotify 2: http://open.spotify.com/album/0DASXKv83w4eEVwUUFRNX3
▶ Spotify 3: http://open.spotify.com/album/1OP89SHzxbGnPBUNUGwiOT
▶ Spotify 4: http://open.spotify.com/album/1dubKwzjLxSQSTbfxZ5xJF
▶ Spotify 5: http://open.spotify.com/album/1kM1101leB7yYKIzN0sjYw
▶ Spotify 6: http://open.spotify.com/album/3WyddvvqMTkrYAFpjHcR99

My Instruction

Lessons/Workshops: Armen's Teaching Approach

“Teaching taught me to analyze my own learning process in order to help others understand theirs,” says pianist Armen Donelian.

“I started teaching music at 14 as a way to support my professional musical career," he goes on. "Teaching came easily to me. I enjoy it because I’m motivated by my love for music and the joy and clarity it has brought to my life and to others.”

Armen Donelian is an internationally active Jazz workshop clinician in Ensemble Improvisation, Piano, Composition, Theory, Aural and Rhythmic Training, History and Accompaniment.

Donelian’s administrative responsibilities at The New School and William Paterson University have included: Leading the Aural Training programs, including Curriculum Development, Teacher Training, Evaluation and Placement of new students; Sophomore Performance Juries; Composition Curriculum Development; Advisement and Instruction of Piano students; Private Instruction in Composition; Graduate Thesis Advisement; Service on the Executive, Curriculum and Faculty Review Committees; and, Service on the NS/Local 802 Faculty Negotiating Committee.

While realizing a successful performing career as a bandleader, composer, solo pianist and sideman with many noted Jazz artists, Donelian's work as a teacher has increased over time. With with saxophonist Marc Mommaas, he co-directs the Hudson Jazz Workshop, a four day immersion in improvisation and composition.

“My approach to individual and classroom teaching begins with assessing a student’s current interest and true condition,” Donelian explains. He leads the student to the next steps in his/her musical development by helping the student to clearly articulate the details of his/her agenda. “It’s all based on the student’s present condition and chosen objectives.” Then, together he and the student chart a course of workable gradients that, supported with regular practice, will lead to his/her desired educational (and professional) outcomes.

Donelian goes on: “It’s urgent that the student grasps the connection between what s/he practices on a daily basis and what s/he truly aspires to become. In addition, how the student practices or studies is as important as the what.” The teacher's role, he says, is to show the student how to encounter and use challenges with skill and optimism, and turn them into opportunities to grow.

Proceeding in this way, Donelian maintains that when the student participates in important decisions about outcomes and methods, s/he will be empowered to create, and energized to commit to, the manifestation of his/her aspirations. In this way, the student is also enabled to avoid both the idle dreaming that lacks accomplishment, as well as the discouragement that prevents it.

“I emphasize a gentle attitude of self-acceptance,” Donelian continues, “coupled with an alert awareness of, and scrupulous attention to, details."

This gradual, steady and mindful approach enables the student to attain concrete musical goals. As the student perceives curricular progress and notices a tangible improvement of his/her skill set, his/her confidence is bolstered as a by-product of skillful effort. Momentum is increased. This approach also supports the student’s pursuit of peripheral interests often leading to joyful self-initiated discoveries.

“Increasingly,” Donelian laments, “The trend in institutional learning is to prioritize mandated standards, where schooling is reduced to a dry and sometimes pointless exercise in discipline and little attention is given to the student’s own process of learning.” Donelian is also wary of commercial pressures in arts education, as curriculum is influenced or even dominated by market-based imperatives. “Essentially,” he says, “when forces outside the student’s choosing determine learning outcomes, her/his learning experience is less than satisfying and productive.”

While some may say that a process-oriented approach is a personal luxury that cannot be implemented in an institutional setting, Donelian feels that enabling students to embrace this approach is, and must be, the point of education, not a fortuitous by-product of it. “As schools inculcate prescribed curricula," Donelian urges, “they must not forget their primary mission of showing the student how to use information to better his or her own life.”

Donelian repeatedly reexamines his teaching methods and style to foster student interest and maintain academic relevance to students’ personal goals. “I regularly reevaluate my initial motivation for teaching,” Donelian affirms. “For me, teaching is and has always been about the music - about reconnecting to my original reasons for playing it, appreciating the benefits it has brought to my life and sharing it with others.”

Teaching History

Armen Donelian is an internationally active Jazz workshop clinician in Ensemble Improvisation, Piano, Composition, Theory, Aural and Rhythmic Training, History and Accompaniment.

Privately, Armen teaches Jazz and Classical Piano, Schoenberg Harmony, Counterpoint, Theory, Improvisation and Composition.

• Private Instructor, 1964-present
• Co-Founder, Hudson Jazz Workshop, with Marc Mommaas (2007-present)
• Adjunct Professor, New School Jazz Program (1986-present)
• Adjunct Professor, William Paterson University (1993-present)
• Adjunct Professor, Manhattan School of Music (1989-2000)
• Instructor, Westchester Conservatory of Music, 1972-85

In his academic work at The New School Jazz Program, William Paterson University, The Manhattan School of Music and elsewhere, Armen Donelian has developed and teaches courses in Aural Training, Piano, Theory, Improvisation, Accompaniment and Species Counterpoint.

Donelian’s administrative responsibilities at The New School and William Paterson University have included: Leading the Aural Training programs, including Curriculum Development, Teacher Training, Evaluation and Placement of new students; Sophomore Performance Juries; Composition Curriculum Development; Advisement and Instruction of Piano students; Private Instruction in Composition; Graduate Thesis Advisement; Service on the Executive, Curriculum and Faculty Review Committees; and, Service on the NS/Local 802 Faculty Negotiating Committee.

Clips (more may be added)

0:09:40
Armen Donelian Plays Kani Vor Jan Eem
By Armen Donelian

246 views
3:52
Armen Donelian on the Casio Celviano Grand Hybrid
By Armen Donelian

252 views

Armen Donelian Curated

Imagine the world's creative economy at your fingertips. Imagine 10 doors side-by-side. Beyond each, 10 more, each opening to a "creative" somewhere around the planet. After passing through 8 such doorways you will have followed 1 pathway out of 100 million possible (2 sets of doorways yield 10 x 10 = 100 pathways). This is a simplified version of the metamathematics that makes it possible to reach anybody in the global creative economy in just a few steps. It doesn't mean that everybody will be reached by everybody. It does mean that everybody can be reached by everybody.

"Chegou a hora dessa gente bronzeada mostrar seu valor / The time has come for these bronzed people to show their value..."

Português →

Sprawled across broad equatorial latitudes...

Stoked and steamed and sensual in the broadest sense of the word...

Limned in prosody & cadenced song...

Set in a conundrum wrapped in a smile inside an irony...

From Bahia, with love: All of this — based in short-range connections between vastly disparate people and entities in the (integrated) global creative economy — began among the sublimely moving people in the clip above. Music: Assis Valente of Santo Amaro, Bahia; Video: Betão Aguiar of Salvador, Bahia

You are now within the vast, virtual, arboreal canopy of a rainforest tree rising from Brazil ... concatenating, intertwining branches encircling the planet...manifesting writers and journalists, painters, filmmakers, choreographers, computer programmers, sound and set designers, fashion designers, mathematicians…from Brooklyn, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Mombasa, Tokyo... all inexorably tending to close-connectedness with all others.

This matrix began with a question: How is it possible to make Brazil’s most historically important musicians discoverable by people living anywhere around the Earth?

Answer: Include them in a seemingly preternaturally interaccessible curation system (the magic herein is mathematics) which would also include members of the creative economy from everywhere else.

Thus it becomes possible for anybody who knows of Quincy Jones to discover João do Boi ("John of the Ox", the vastly important Son House of Brazil) in just four (or conceivably fewer) steps (Quincy Jones > Alfredo Rodriguez > Munir Hossn > Roberto Mendes > João do Boi).

And if Herbie Hancock is inside the matrix then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.

...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers, chefs...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required (nor capable). Real intelligence, yes.

These are not isolated examples. Short pathways of few steps between widely disparate creative people are universal throughout the matrix. Such is the mathematical power of the small world phenomenon, the phenomenon responsible for “six degrees of separation”, joining most human beings to most others within some six or so steps. This is the matrix’s superpower.

Question: What's with the Hebrew letter on matrix media pages?

Answer: Web Aleph.

Question: How is this a matrix?

Answer: The original meaning of "matrix" is "source", derived from "mater", Latin for "mother" (hence our motto: We're a real mother for ya!). The Matrix Online Network is a virtual realization of Web Aleph, allowing people to actually move from members of the Global Creative Economy to other members of the GCE (thus an Integrated Global Creative Economy: IGCE) in accessible steps. The matrix opens up and unites the creative world in a way which hasn't been possible since mankind first blew through a bone flute some 40,000 years ago.

Question: Why not use Artificial Intelligence rather than human curation?

Answer: Artificial Intelligence makes personal music recommendations based upon what any given person has chosen to listen to previously (and upon what people deemed to have similarities to any given person have chosen to listen to previously). But matrix curation is general, not personal. And moreover, while AI recommendations for music can satisfy some people, such recommendations are currently impossible for the work of writers, painters, choreographers, filmmakers, actors, chefs...

The Matrix is capable of reaching deeply, per João's village of São Braz, in the Bahian Recôncavo...

Landings of Enslaved by Numbers

Endpoint of a centuries-long enforced odyssey, the region of the Bahian Recôncavo received more enslaved human beings than any other port-of-call throughout the entire history of mankind. One irony is that these people created some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever sung and danced to. Another irony — true in the United States as well — is that their music would evolve to become the national music of the country which had enslaved them. A meta-irony then is that these two gargantuan ironies are almost completely unknown.

Number of Embarked/Disembarked Enslaved at Selected Landings from 1514 to 1866:

Bahia, port unspecified *

Embarked: 1,339,627

Disembarked: 1,206,934

* “Bahia” above is the archaically used name for the city of Salvador. These are the numbers for Salvador and the Recôncavo.

The numbers below are for Bahia including Taipu and Porto Seguro:

Bahia

Embarked: 1,347,121

Disembarked: 1,213,691

Rio de Janeiro

Embarked: 1,216,113

Disembarked: 1,099,908

Brazil

Embarked: 3,515,638

Disembarked: 3,165,307

Mainland North America

Embarked: 359,628

Disembarked: 301,740

Our source is the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database centered at Emory University and available online at http://slavevoyages.org/

Dear friend, wherever (and whomsoever) you may be—

Have you ever noticed how different places scattered across the face of the globe seem almost to exist in different universes? As if they were permeated throughout with something akin to 19th century luminiferous aether, unique, determined by that place's history? It's like a trick of the mind's light (I suppose), but standing on beach or escarpment in Salvador and looking out across the Baía de Todos os Santos to the great Recôncavo, and mindful of what happened there (the Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind's existence on this planet), one must be led to the inevitable conclusion that one is in a place unique to history, and to the present...

Brazil is not a European nation. It is not a North American nation. It is not an East Asian nation. Brazil straddles — jungle and desert and dense urban centers — both the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn. Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin. It was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil's national music — the pandeiro — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).

Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil's culturally fecund nordeste/northeast, where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa (Lagoon of the Canoe) and raised in Olho d'Águia (Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil's aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David. Three cultures — from three continents — running for their lives, their confluence forming an unprecedented fourth. Pandeirista on the roof. Nowhere else but here.

"Onde tem miséria, tem música!"* - Raymundo Sodré (↓)

* "Where there is misery, there is music!" Remarked during a conversation arcing from Bahia to Haiti and Cuba to New Orleans and the south side of Chicago and Harlem to the villages of Ireland and the gypsy camps and shtetls of Eastern Europe...

The network was built in an obscure record shop evincing this cauldron (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar found it) in a shimmering Brazilian port city...

...it was inspired in (the kabbalah-inspired fiction of) Borges' (phenomenal short story) El Aleph, that in the pillar in Cairo's Mosque of Amr, where the universe in its entirety throughout all time is perceivable as an infinite hum from deep within the stone.

It "works" by virtue of the "small-world" phenomenon...the same responsible for the fact that most of 7 billion or so beings are within 6 or fewer degrees of each other.

It was described (to some degree) and can be accessed via this article in British journal The Guardian (which named our radio of matrixed artists as one of ten best in the world):

www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/apr/17/10-best-music-radio-station-around-world

(0ur radio — built below — is here)

With David Dye for U.S. National Public Radio: www.npr.org/2013/07/16/202634814/roots-of-samba-exploring-historic-pelourinho-in-salvador-brazil

Per the "spirit" above, our logo is a cortador de cana, a cane-cutter. It was designed by Walter Mariano, professor of design at the Federal University of Bahia to reflect the origins of the music the shop specialized in, music which remains a potent force on the remainder of its native ground, the Recôncavo proper, where it is danced to on pounded earth, under moonlight broken by banana, palm and mango leaves, lifting the souls of its participants almost like something religious, which it was, and gods aside, is.

The Brazilian "aleph" doesn't hum... it dances and sings. And all is more connected than we imagine.

Welcome to the kitchen!

From Salvador with love,

- Pardal "Sparrow" Roberts

Years ago in NYC (I've lived here in Brazil for over 30 years now) I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).

But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great. In a certain sense, this rainforest tree sprouted from a streetcorner in Harlem.

Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.

Imagine João do Boi!

Espalhados por amplas latitudes equatoriais...

Empolgante e fumegante e sensual no sentido mais amplo da palavra...

Delineado em prosódia e canção cadenciada...

Situado num enigma envolto de um sorriso dentro de uma ironia...

Da Bahia, com afeto: Tudo isso – baseado em conexões de curto alcance entre pessoas e entidades muito díspares na economia criativa global (integrada) – começou entre as pessoas sublimemente comoventes no clipe acima. Música: Assis Valente de Santo Amaro, Bahia; Vídeo: Betão Aguiar de Salvador, Bahia

Você está agora dentro do vasto, virtual, dossel arbóreo de uma árvore da floresta tropical que se ergue do Brasil... concatenando, entrelaçando galhos que circundam o planeta... manifestando escritores e jornalistas, pintores, cineastas, coreógrafos, programadores de computador, designers de som e cenografia, designers de moda, matemáticos... do Brooklyn, Berlim, Buenos Aires, Cidade do Cabo, Mombasa, Tóquio...

Este matrix começou com uma pergunta: Como é possível fazer com que os músicos historicamente mais importantes do Brasil sejam descobertos por pessoas que vivem em qualquer lugar da Terra?

Resposta: Inclua-os em um sistema de curadoria aparentemente sobrenaturalmente interacessível (a magia aqui é matemática) que também incluiria membros da economia criativa de todos os outros lugares.

Assim, torna-se possível para quem conhece Quincy Jones descobrir João do Boi (o imensamente importante músico de raizes profundíssimas) em apenas quatro (ou concebivelmente menos) passos (Quincy Jones > Alfredo Rodriguez > Munir Hossn > Roberto Mendes > João do Boi).

Este não é um exemplo isolado. Caminhos curtos de poucos passos entre pessoas criativas amplamente díspares são universais em toda a matriz. Tal é o poder matemático do fenômeno do mundo pequeno, o fenômeno responsável pelos “seis graus de separação”, unindo a maioria dos seres humanos à maioria dos outros em cerca de seis passos. Esta é a superpotência da matriz.

Pergunta: O que há com a letra hebraica nas páginas da mídia matrix?

Resposta: Web Alef.

Pergunta: Como isso é uma matrix?

Resposta: O significado original de "matrix" é "fonte". A Matrix Online Network é uma realização virtual da Web Alef, permitindo que as pessoas realmente passem de membros da Economia Criativa Global para outros membros da ECG (portanto, uma Economia Criativa Global Integrada: ECGI) em etapas acessíveis. O matrix abre e une o mundo criativo de uma forma que não era possível desde que a humanidade tocou pela primeira vez uma flauta de osso há cerca de 40.000 anos.

Pergunta: Por que não usar Inteligência Artificial em vez de curadoria humana?

Resposta: A Inteligência Artificial faz recomendações pessoais de música com base no que uma pessoa escolheu ouvir anteriormente (e no que as pessoas consideradas semelhantes a alguém escolheram ouvir anteriormente). Mas a curadoria matricial é geral, não pessoal. Além disso, embora as recomendações de IA para música possam satisfazer algumas pessoas, essas recomendações são atualmente impossíveis para o trabalho de escritores, pintores, coreógrafos, cineastas, atores, chefs...

O Matrix é capaz de atingir profundamente...

Desembarques de Escravizados por Números

Ponto final de uma odisséia forçada de séculos, a região do Recôncavo baiano recebeu mais seres humanos escravizados do que qualquer outro porto de escala em toda a história da humanidade. Uma ironia é que essas pessoas criaram algumas das músicas mais edificantes fisicamente e espiritualmente já cantadas e dançadas. Outra ironia - verdadeira também nos Estados Unidos - é que sua música evoluiria para se tornar a música nacional do país que os escravizou. Uma meta-ironia, então, é que essas duas ironias gigantescas são quase completamente desconhecidas.

Número de Escravizados Embarcados/Desembarcados em Desembarques Selecionados de 1514 a 1866:Bahia, porto não especificado *

Embarcados: 1.339.627

Desembarcados: 1.206.934

* “Bahia” acima é o nome arcaico usado para a cidade de Salvador. Esses são os números de Salvador e do Recôncavo.Os números abaixo são para a Bahia incluindo Taipu e Porto Seguro:

Bahia

Embarcados: 1.347.121

Desembarcados: 1.213.691

Rio de Janeiro

Embarcados: 1.216.113

Desembarcados: 1.099.908

Brasil

Embarcados: 3.515.638

Desembarcados: 3.165.307

América do Norte continental

Embarcados: 359.628

Desembarcado: 301.740

Nossa fonte é o Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database centrado na Emory University e disponível online em http://slavevoyages.org/

Caro amigo, onde (e quem quer que) você esteja—

Você já reparou como lugares diferentes espalhados pela face do globo parecem quase existir em universos diferentes? Como se estivessem permeados por algo semelhante ao éter luminífero do século XIX, único, determinado pela história daquele lugar? É como um truque de luz da mente (suponho), mas de pé na praia ou escarpa em Salvador e olhando para a Baía de Todos os Santos para o grande Recôncavo, e atento ao que aconteceu lá (o Recôncavo foi o último porto de - clamar por mais seres humanos escravizados do que qualquer outro lugar ao longo de toda a existência da humanidade neste planeta), deve-se ser levado à inevitável conclusão de que estamos em um lugar único para a história e para o presente...

O Brasil não é uma nação europeia. Não é uma nação norte-americana. Não é uma nação do leste asiático. O Brasil atravessa - selva e deserto e centros urbanos densos - tanto o equador quanto o Trópico de Capricórnio. O Brasil absorveu mais de dez vezes o número de africanos escravizados levados para os Estados Unidos da América e é um repositório de divindades africanas (e sua música) hoje amplamente esquecidas em suas terras de origem. Era uma espécie de refúgio para os sefarditas que fugiam de uma Inquisição que os seguiu através do Atlântico (aquele símbolo não oficial da música nacional do Brasil – o pandeiro – quase certamente foi trazido para o Brasil por essas pessoas).

Pelas savanas ressequidas do interior do nordeste/nordeste culturalmente fecundo do Brasil, onde o feiticeiro Hermeto Pascoal nasceu na Lagoa da Canoa e foi criado em Olho d'Águia, grande parte da população aborígene do Brasil foi absorvida por uma cultura caboclo/quilombola pontuada pela Estrela de Davi. Três culturas - de três continentes - correndo por suas vidas, sua confluência formando uma quarta sem precedentes. Pandeirista no telhado. Em nenhum outro lugar, mas aqui.

"Onde tem miséria, tem música!"* - Raymundo Sodré (↓)

* Observado durante uma conversa que ia da Bahia ao Haiti e Cuba a Nova Orleans e o lado sul de Chicago e Harlem às aldeias da Irlanda e aos acampamentos ciganos e shtetls da Europa Oriental...

A rede foi construída em uma obscura loja de discos evidenciando este caldeirão (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar o encontrou) em uma cintilante cidade portuária brasileira...

...foi inspirada na (ficção inspirada na cabala) de Borges (conto fenomenal) El Aleph, aquele no pilar da Mesquita de Amr, no Cairo, onde o universo em sua totalidade ao longo de todos os tempos é perceptível como um zumbido infinito das profundezas da pedra.

Ela "funciona" em virtude do fenômeno do "mundo pequeno"... o mesmo responsável pelo fato de que a maioria dos 7 bilhões ou mais de seres estão dentro de 6 graus ou menos uns dos outros.

Ela foi descrita (até certo ponto) e pode ser acessada através deste artigo do jornal britânico The Guardian (que elegeu nossa rádio de artistas matrix como uma das dez melhores do mundo):

www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/apr/17/10-best-music-radio-station-around-world

(O nosso rádio — construído abaixo — está aqui)

Com David Dye para o Rádio Nacional dos EUA, National Public Radio: www.npr.org/2013/07/16/202634814/roots-of-samba-exploring-historic-pelourinho-in-salvador-brazil

De acordo com o "espírito" acima, nosso logotipo é um cortador de cana. Foi projetado por Walter Mariano, professor de design da Universidade Federal da Bahia para refletir as origens da música em que a loja se especializou, música que continua sendo uma força potente no restante de sua terra natal, o Recôncavo propriamente dito, onde é dançada à terra batida, sob o luar quebrado por folhas de bananeira, palmeira e manga, erguendo as almas de seus participantes quase como algo religioso, o que era, e deuses à parte, é.

O "alef" brasileiro não cantarola... dança e canta. E tudo está mais conectado do que imaginamos.

Bem-vindo à cozinha!

De Salvador com amor,
- Pardal "Sparrow" Roberts

Anos atrás em NYC (vivo aqui no Brasil há mais de 30 anos) eu "resgatei" royalties não pagos (performance e mecânica) para artistas/compositores incluindo Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd, Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass e muitos outros. Aretha me ligou do nada em relação ao dinheiro devido pela Atlantic Records. Allen Klein ligou sobre o dinheiro devido ao espólio de Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) ligou apenas para ver se ele tinha algum dinheiro não pago circulando por aí (o mundo da realeza era uma selva cheia de tubarões, para destruir metáforas, e duvido que tenha mudado).

Mas o cliente (e amigo) pertinente no presente contexto é Earl "Speedo" Carroll, dos Cadillacs. Earl passou de doo-wopping nas esquinas do Harlem para o sucesso no topo das paradas para trabalhar como zelador na escola primária PS 87 no lado oeste de Manhattan. Com tudo isso, ele nunca perdeu o que o fez grande. De certa forma, esta árvore de floresta tropical brotou de uma esquina no Harlem.

A grandeza e a fama são muitas vezes confundidas. O primeiro deve ser acessível independentemente do segundo.