by Aram Arkun
WATERTOWN — The Secret Trio, a musical group composed of Macedonian clarinetist Ismail Lumanovski, Armenian oud player Ara Dinkjian, and Turkish kanun player Tamer Pınarbaşı, performed at the Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Center for the Arts in Watertown on Friday, March 21.
The concert was organized by Dr. Aida Yavshayan, Arto Kurkjian and Mardiros Merdinian for the Society of Istanbul Armenians of Boston (SOIAB) as a fundraiser for the Armenian schools of Istanbul.
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Dr. Aida Yavshayan and Mardiros Merdinian (photo Aram Arkun)
According to one of the organizers, there were around 235 guests in the audience.
Yavshayan and Merdinian greeted the guests. Yavshayan explained that there are 16 Armenian schools operating today in Istanbul, five of which are high schools. Each school is affiliated with an Armenian charitable foundation which acts as its benefactor. In the 2022-23 academic year, there were 2,865 students, she said. SOIAB supports three to five of the schools annually.
Merdinian noted that SOIAB usually doesn’t organize this kind of large concert, but Ara Dinkjian had reached out to offer to perform for it after a prior SOIAB event with the Zulal trio. Dinkjian later during the concert said that he had never done this before, but he has a particular affection for Istanbul Armenians.
Dinkjian periodically gave context to the pieces the band was performing. At one point, he opined that by definition, one can’t tell who the composer of folk melodies is, but that in his opinion, one can tell by the character of the melody where it originated geographically, and it was Armenians, Turks, Kurds and others who were living on those lands.
The Secret Trio donated some of its CDs and LPs to SOIAB so that proceeds from their sale would help the Istanbul Armenian schools along with income from ticket sales.
