CENTRAL NEWS
Kurds saved the life of his father who was an Armenian from Batman’s Sason district, during the genocide against the Armenians in Turkey in 1915. He fled with them to Syria and settled in the town of Qamishlo, which is inhabited mainly by Kurds. His son Aram Tigran was born in there in 1934.
Aram Tigran received his first Oud from his uncle at the age of six. After finishing ninth grade, he concentrated his efforts on learning music and playing Oud and in 1953 he gave his first public concert at the Newroz celebrations.. By the age of twenty years, he was singing in four languages: Kurdish, Arabic, Syriac and Armanian.
In 1966 he moved to Yerewan, Armenia, at the time a part of the Soviet Union, where he worked for 18 years at Radio Yerewan. He left Armenia in 1995 and settled in Athens. He is considered among the best of contemporary Kurdish singers and musicians. He recorded 230 songs in Kurdish, 150 in Arabic, 10 in Syriac, 8 in Greek.
With his voice and his works for Kurdish music he earned a grand place in the heart of the Kurdish community. Born in exile, grew up in exile and passed away in exile. On 6 August he became brain-dead, and on 8 August 2009 he deceased.
Aram Tigran, who passed away in Athens at the age of 75, was buried in Brussels after the fascist Turkish state refused he be burried in Amed. The HDP mayor of Amed at the time, Osman Baydemir, had earth from his city transported to Belgium to fulfil the last wish of the artist.
