All musical works of Aram Tigran to be released again

* Photo: Sirvart Melikyan, Hakan Akay, Kakşar Oramar

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The German-Kurdish Cultural Institute (Deutsch-Kurdisches Kulturinstitut) has acquired the copyrights and broadcasting rights of the works of Aram Tigran, a prominent artist of Kurdish music.

Sirvart Melikyan, the wife of late musician Aram Tigran, who devoted his life to Kurdish music, signed a contract with the Institute with this aim and transferred all copyrights and license rights to the Institute.

Melikyan has said that with this contract, the works of Aram Tigran are now taken under the protection of the Institute on the international platform. She has also called on the companies that have been broadcasting his music without permission to withdraw their broadcasts.

"In his last will to me, Aram Tîgran wanted his rights to be represented and protected in the rightest way possible. We have taken a very significant step with this contract that we have signed with the German-Kurdish Cultural Institute," Sirvart Melikyan has noted.

'We want to establish a Foundation in Rojava'

Sirvart Melikyan has said that they, together with the Cultural Institute, also want to establish a foundation in the name of Aram Tîgran in Rojava in the north of Syria, a place which was Tigran's biggest longing.

According to a statement released by the Institute, Aram Tîgran's all works will be reviewed and their sound will be restored. Also, writer and researcher Kakşar Oremar will focus on the musician's biography in a more comprehensive manner, prepare a wide catalogue of his all works and the German-Kurdish Cultural Institute will broadcast/publish them.

About Aram Tigran

A composer who sang in Kurdish, Armenian and Arabic throughout his life. He became interested in music at the age of nine with playing the oud. As the son of a family expelled from Diyarbakır in 1915 during the Armenian Genocide, he was born in Syria's Qamishlo city in 1934.

He went to Armenia's capital, Yerevan in 1966 and worked at Yerevan Radio for 18 years. He settled in Athens in 1995. He released 11 albums during his music career. He visited Diyarbakır for the 2009 Newroz celebrations. After falling ill there, he had an angiography. He was declared brain-dead on August 6, 2009, in Athens and lost his life on August 8.

After his burial in Diyarbakır was rejected by Turkey's government because he was not a citizen of Turkey, he was buried in Brussels. Soil brought from Diyarbakır was poured into his grave. (FD/SD)