WATERTOWN, Mass.–Funeral services were held Monday for famous musician Ohannes Salibian, who passed away last Thursday of complication from bladder cancer.
Salibian lived more than one life, crossed several oceans, was open to all cultures of the world. But music sustained him, kept him buoyant most of the time, and gave shape to his life.
It was his love of music, which he gave to all so generously and magnificently, that sustained him. Music was the tissue of his being, and now that he is physically gone, that is what I will miss most of all. His emotional life was varied, contradictory, sometimes troublesome even to him, but he always had (and cultivated) the solace and beauty of sound.
In that open, private landscape, he was also able to find a place of honor and dignity for our ancestral Armenian musical culture; to marry his modernist, aims with his national passions; to transcend as much as he could dislocation, anger and sadness. And in the end, it was this marriage that was his home, his homestead and his homeland.
Funeral Services were held Monday, September 24 at St. Stephen’s Armenian Apostolic Church, Watertown, MA. Interment was at Newton Cemetery, Newton, MA.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to St. Stephen’s Armenian Elementary School, 47 Nichols Avenue, Watertown, MA 02472, or Armenia Fund, Inc., 111 North Jackson Street, Suite 205, Glendale, CA 91206.
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