Sirvart Vartan Poladian (Armenian: Սիրվարդ Վարդան Փոլադյան; June 16, 1902 – December 26, 1970) was an Armenian-American ethnomusicologist and librarian.

Sirvart Poladian
A young Armenian woman with dark hair cut in a short bob
Sirvart Poladian, from a 1923 newspaper
Born
Sirvart Vartan Poladian

June 16, 1902
Maraş, Turkey
DiedDecember 26, 1970 (age 68)
Schuyler, New York, U.S.
Other namesSirvart Kachie
Occupation(s)Ethnomusicologist, librarian

Early life and education

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Poladian was born in Maraş, Turkey, the daughter of Vartan Poladian and Leah Sarkissian.[1] Her father was a physician.[2] She escaped to Canada, where she gave public talks, explaining to audiences that "I have been through three massacres."[3]

Poladian moved to California, and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1935, and earned a master's degree there in 1937. From 1940 to 1942, she was a doctoral student at Columbia University, and she completed a Ph.D. in musicology at Cornell University in 1946, with a dissertation titled "Handel as an Opera Composer".[4] In 1956 she also earned a degree in library science from Columbia.[5]

Career

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Poladian taught school after college, and taught piano classes for adults.[6] She was Sidney Robertson Cowell's assistant on the Works Progress Administration's California Folk Music Project.[7] She held grants from the American Council of Learned Societies[8] and the American Association of University Women in the 1940s.[9]

Poladian taught at Florida State University from 1946 to 1948,[10] and was on the music staff at the New York Public Library from 1953 to 1968.[5] She worked on classification approaches for folk music.[11][12]

Publications

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  • "The Problem of Melodic Variation in Folk Song" (1942)[13]
  • Armenian Folk Songs (1942)[14][15]
  • "Melodic Contour in Traditional Music" (1951)[16]
  • "Rev. John Tofts and Three-part Psalmody in America" (1951)[17]
  • "Armenian sacred music and notation" (1960)[18]
  • Sir Arthur Sullivan: an index to the texts of his vocal works (1961)
  • "Traditional Music of Bolivia and Ecuador" (1962)[19]
  • "Music of the Americas: Folk Music of Chile" (1962)[20]
  • "Miriam Karpilow Whaples: Exoticism in dramatic music" (1965)[21]
  • "Komitas Vartabed, Musician-Priest" (1971)[22]
  • "Komitas Vardapet and His Contribution to Ethnomusicology" (1972)[23]

Personal life

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Poladian became a United States citizen in 1929, and married John Kachie in 1949. She died in 1970, at the age of 68, in Schuyler, New York.[5] Her nephew Dicron Aram Berberian was a painter and aid worker.[24]

References

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  1. ^ Birth date and parents' names given on a Brazilian tourist card dated August 30, 1963.
  2. ^ Berberian, Raffi Robert (May–July 2002). "Arminé D. Berberian (obituary)". AMAA News: 21 – via Internet Archive.
  3. ^ "Draws Word Pictures of Turkish Atrocities; Pretty Little Armenian Girl Tells of Horrors of Three Massacres". The Toronto Star. 1923-10-24. p. 18. Retrieved 2024-03-19 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ Poladian, Sirvart. Handel as an opera composer. Cornell University, 1946.
  5. ^ a b c Krader, Barbara A. (1971). "Sirvart Poladian". Ethnomusicology. 15 (2): 249–251. ISSN 0014-1836. JSTOR 850470.
  6. ^ "WPA Piano Course Open to Adults". Oakland Tribune. 1940-01-15. p. 7. Retrieved 2024-03-19 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ Kerst, Catherine Hiebert (2024-04-02). California Gold: Sidney Robertson and the WPA California Folk Music Project. Univ of California Press. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-520-39132-1.
  8. ^ "Sirvart Poladian". ACLS. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  9. ^ "A. A. U. W. Party to Aid Fellowship". The News Tribune. 1944-04-20. p. 6. Retrieved 2024-03-19 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ Anderson, Lola (1947-07-06). "Pre-Incan Whistling Jugs are Believed to be Ancient Musical Instruments". Tallahassee Democrat. p. 15. Retrieved 2024-03-19 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ Bohlman, Philip V. (1988-06-22). The Study of Folk Music in the Modern World. Indiana University Press. pp. 38–39. ISBN 978-0-253-11260-6.
  12. ^ Shelemay, Kay Kaufman (2013-10-28). Ethnomusicology: History, Definitions, and Scope: A Core Collection of Scholarly Articles. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-50972-8.
  13. ^ Poladian, Sirvart (1942). "The Problem of Melodic Variation in Folk Song". The Journal of American Folklore. 55 (218): 204–211. doi:10.2307/535862. ISSN 0021-8715. JSTOR 535862.
  14. ^ Poladian, Sirvart (1942). Armenian Folk Songs. University of California Press.
  15. ^ Bayard, Samuel P. (1943). "Review of Armenian Folk Songs". California Folklore Quarterly. 2 (4): 332–335. doi:10.2307/1495509. ISSN 1556-1283. JSTOR 1495509.
  16. ^ Poladian, Sirvart (March 1951). "Melodic Contour in Traditional Music". Journal of the International Folk Music Council. 3: 30–35. doi:10.2307/835769. ISSN 0950-7922. JSTOR 835769.
  17. ^ Poladian, Sirvart. "Rev. John Tufts and Three-Part Psalmody in America." Jour. of the Amer. Musicol. Soc. IV (Fall 1951): 276-277.
  18. ^ Poladian, Sirvart. "Armenian sacred music and notation." Ararat (Spring 1960) (1960): 22-31.
  19. ^ Poladian, Sirvart. "Traditional Music of Bolivia and Ecuador" Music Journal 20, no. 7 (1962): 64.
  20. ^ Poladian, S., 1962. "Music of the Americas: Folk Music of Chile" Music Journal 20(6), p.78.
  21. ^ Poladian, Sirvart. "Miriam Karpilow Whaples: Exoticism in dramatic music." Current Musicology 1 (1965): 114-117.
  22. ^ Poladian, S., 1971. "Komitas Vartabed, Musician-Priest" Music Journal 29(1), p.36.
  23. ^ Poladian, Sirvart (1972). "Komitas Vardapet and His Contribution to Ethnomusicology". Ethnomusicology. 16 (1): 82–97. doi:10.2307/850444. ISSN 0014-1836. JSTOR 850444.
  24. ^ "Dicron Aram Berberian". The New York Times. July 19, 1987. p. 26. Retrieved 2024-03-19.