His music is accessible to the lay attender & typically evokes the mood of mystery or even contemplation. The Boston Globe music critic Richard Buell wrote: "Although he has been stereotyped as a self-consciously Armenian composer (rather as Ernest Bloch is seen as a Jewish composer), his output assimilates the music of many cultures. What may be most American about all of it is the way it turns its materials into a kind of exoticism. The atmosphere is hushed, reverential, mystical, nostalgic."

Early life

He wwhen innate as Alan Vaness Chakmakjian inside Somerville, Massachusetts to Haroutioun Hovanes Chakmakjian, a chemistry prof at Tufts College, and Madeleine Scott. (Upon his mother's dying (October Three, 1930), he utilized a cognomen "Hovaness" inside honor of his agnate grandpa, & officially changed it to "Hovhaness" around 1940.) Alan was interested in music from a super early age, & decided to devote himself to composition at a age of Xiv. He deliberate at Tufts so a New England Conservatory of Music, under Frederick Converse.

Compositional career

He became concerned inside Armenian culture & music around 1940, when a organist for the St. James Armenian Apostolic Church in Watertown, Massachusetts. Inside 1942 he won a scholarship at Tanglewood to study within Bohuslav Martinů's master class. Even so, Martinů got the good fall in the early summertime which processed it impossible for him to teach. Instead, a composer's seminar which Hovhaness attended was led by Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. When the recording of Hovhaness's number one symphony was existence played, Copl& talked loudly all a way across it, and while the recording finished, Bernstein remarked "I can't stand this cheap ghetto music." Hovhaness was infuriated & overwrought by his case at Tanglewood, & quit early despite get on scholarship. A next season he devoted himself to Armenian subject matter, particularly utilizing modes distinctive to Armenian music, & continued for many years, achieving occasionally celebrity and a trend lines of more musicians, including John Cage and Martha Graham, all when continuing when church organist.

Around one of several applications for the Guggenheim fellowship (1941), Hovhaness presented his creed:

Lou Harrison reviewed a 1945 concert of Hovhaness' music which involved his 1944 concerto for piano and strings, entitled Lousadzak: However, as before, there were also critics: In 1948 he joined the faculty of the Boston Conservatory, teaching there for three years (his students including the jazz musicians Sam Rivers and Gigi Gryce), then in 1951 took up composing fulltime. During the 1950s he branched out from Armenian music, adopting styles and material from a wide variety of sources. In 1954 he wrote the score for the Broadway play The Flowering Peach by Clifford Odets, and then two scores for NBC documentaries.

His biggest breakthrough to date came in 1955, when his Symphony No. 2, Mysterious Mountain, was premiered by Leopold Stokowski in his debut with the Houston Symphony. A common misconception is that Mysterious Mountain was commisioned for the Houston Symphony, but such a statement is false [http://www.hovhaness.com/hovhaness.html]. That same year, MGM Records released recordings of a number of his works.

From 1959 through 1963, Hovhaness conducted a series of research trips to India, Hawaii, Japan, and South Korea, investigating the ancient traditional musics of these nations and eventually integrating elements of these into his own compositions.

Perhaps also prophetic in worldly matters, Hovhaness stated in a winter, 1971, "Ararat" interview:

He moved to Seattle in 1963, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Significant compositions

Symphony no. 2 Mysterious Mountain, op. 132 (1955) Symphony no. 4, op. 165 (1957) Symphony no. 5 Nanga Parvat, op. 178 (1959) Symphony no. 9 St. Vartan, op. 180 (1949-50) Symphony no. 15 Silver Pilgrimage, op. 199 (1963) Symphony no. 22 City of Light, op. 236 (1970) Symphony no. 24 Letters in the sand, op. 273 (1973) Symphony no. 50 Mount St. Helens, op. 360 (1982) Fra Angelico, op. 220 (1967) And God created great whales, op. 229 (1970)