Amos
Oud Junkie
Posts: 405
Registered: 3-26-2005
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Al Gardner Bardezbanian's Memorial
Hi everyone,
I just wanted to let everyone who could not be there know that there was a beautfiul celebration of the late oud virtuoso Al Gardner Bardezbanian's
life this past weekend in Bath, Maine. Many of his martial arts students, musical colleagues, students, friends and loved ones came to pay their
respects to Al and all of his amazing accomplishments. There were many laughs as Al's longtime friend Peter Kyvelos told stories about their years of
friendship, as well as when we got to hear about Al's incredibly playful spirit when several of his senior martial arts students told us about their
endless practical jokes on one another.
We all played music, as Al wanted, and many people danced when Al's Middle Eastern Ensemble played...I could not help but feel the huge absence of my
teacher. His empty chair was almost unbearable, but he wanted us to play and dance.
Simon Shaheen played a heartbreaking saz semai for his friend and colleague...Simon strayed from his usual style to reflect Al's amazingly florid and
ornamented sound. It was a very beautiful moment, but of course very hard. Al would have loved it, though. He loved Simon's playing.
I just wanted to tell you all a little about the day, and the wonderful outpouring of love and respect for my friend, my teacher, my guide in music
and in many other respects.
Thanks for listening,
Amos
Our music is like an ocean...
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Jonathan
Oud Junkie
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From the Boston Globe:
>
>Alan Gardner, 56, devotee, master of the ancient oud
>By Bryan Marquard, Globe Staff | December 1, 2006
>
>As a child at Armenian gatherings, Alan S. Gardner watched the bands
> play and became fascinated with the oud, an ancient Middle Eastern
> stringed instrument that is difficult to master.
>
>"He started to play the oud at 12 years old," said his father,
>Alfred of Swampscott. "He would play an Armenian record, the old
>78s. He'd play just a portion of it, then he'd stop it and start
>playing the oud. Then he'd play a little more and stop, then play a
>couple of chords on the oud. Little by little, he taught himself."
>
>Mr. Gardner learned other instruments, too. There wasn't much call
>for an oud in the Swampscott High School band, so he learned to play
> the trumpet and the baritone horn, and in later years the soprano
>saxophone, the valve trombone, and a G clarinet used in Turkish folk
> music. With the oud, however, he established a strong regional
>reputation among those fond of the haunting melodies and microtone
>scales in the music of Armenia, Greece, and Turkey.
>
>"He was the kind of individual who never spoke much about himself,
>even though he was an absolute master of the oud," said Peter
>Kyvelos, a luthier who owns Unique Strings in Belmont and made many
>of Mr. Gardner's ouds for the past three decades. "He was very, very
> intense with something he really, really loved, and he loved the
>oud. He studied it extensively."
>
>Mr. Gardner, who also was a professional martial arts instructor and
> a competitive champion, died of heart failure Nov. 9 in his home
>in West Bath, Maine. He was 56.
>
>"He was both a consummate student and a consummate teacher," Suzan
>Steer, Mr. Gardner's companion of 35 years, said of his work in
>music and the martial arts. "He was the best student you could ask
>for -- he was respectful, he gave you his all. And he felt it was
>his duty for both disciplines to pass on the knowledge."
>
>Born in Lynn, he grew up in Swampscott, an only child whose
>grandparents were from Anatolia and Syria in the days of the Ottoman
> Empire.
>
>He was immediately drawn to the oud players when his family took him
> to social events.
>
>The instrument, which by some accounts dates back 3,500 years, has
>11 strings -- five pairs of two, with each pair tuned in unison,
>and a single string turned low. The word oud, which rhymes with
>wood, is said to derive from Arabic for "the wood."
>
>The oud's pear-shaped, flat wood surface is backed with a rounded
>body. The neck is short, only several inches long, and unlike the
>guitar has no frets. That allows a player to slide between notes,
>improvising to create the microtonal melodies that differ
>dramatically from the 12-tone scale that is the foundation of
>Western music.
>
>"It's the cracks between the piano keys, if you will," Kyvelos said.
> "It's very difficult to master the instrument -- not only the
>technique, but locating the notes. You have to have a keen
>understanding of the music and develop a very good ear."
>
>Oud music is based in "a melodic tradition," said Mary Hunter, a
>music professor at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, who studied
>briefly with Mr. Gardner. "It's melodic and rhythmic, it's not
>harmonic. What you respond to is the turns in the melody, and you're
> always aware of the underlying rhythm even as he was playing a
>melodic phase."
>
>By high school Mr. Gardner had mastered the oud enough to put
>together his own ensemble and play at social events. He also
>performed with the school band and on the football team, and his
>devotion to extracurriculars left little time for schoolwork.
>
>"He had so many activities he used school to sleep," Steer said.
>
>After graduating from Swampscott High School, Mr. Gardner spent a
>year at Kents Hill School in Kents Hill, Maine, to prepare for Bates
> College in Lewiston, 30 miles away.
>
>"He was a real city guy," Steer said. "He thought his life was over
>when he first saw Kents Hill -- it's in the middle of nowhere. But
>like so many people, once you spend some time in Maine, you can't
>imagine being anywhere else."
>
>Mr. Gardner spent his junior year in Boston at Berklee College of
>Music, then returned to graduate from Bates in 1973.
>
>Within a couple of years, he had opened his own martial arts
>instruction business, Wu Hsing Shan, in Bath, Maine. Beginning as a
>part-time instructor, he gradually turned the business and music
>into his life's work.
>
>He held high-ranking titles in different martial arts disciplines,
>which he taught to hundreds of adults and children over the past 33
>years.
>
>Adopting for musical performances his immigrant grandparents' name,
>Bardezbanian, which had been Americanized to its approximate English
> equivalent of Gardner, he formed the Alan Shavarsh Bardezbanian
>Middle Eastern Ensemble. The group's most recent CD is "From Kef to
>Classical."
>
>"He played with real soul," Hunter said. "He didn't try to hog the
>limelight, but when he soloed it was always beautiful."
>
>Though he lived in Maine, Mr. Gardner treasured his trips to Unique
>Strings in Belmont and would always stop at Sevan Bakery in
>Watertown to purchase lamejun.
>
>At home he kept the hours of a city musician, preferring nights to
>mornings.
>
>"When he got up it was usually late in the morning," Steer said. "He
> would sit in his music room and just practice for hours. That was
>his idea of a good time -- he just lost himself. He had to set
>alarms to remind himself of when to go to work."
>
>"I've never met anybody like him. He was completely unique," Hunter
>said. "He was very humble -- he always felt there was something to
>learn from someone else."
>
>A memorial service will be held at 9 a.m. Sunday at Hyde School in
>Bath, Maine. 
>
>
>© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
>
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abusin
Oud Junkie
Posts: 442
Registered: 3-23-2006
Location: Manchester England
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Condolences to his family, friends, students and his music fans, may God rest his soul in peace.
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