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Armenian family’s 400-year-old musical secret still rings true 13:25 • 18.09.18 http://www.tert.am/news_images/932/2794395_3/f5ba0c46e3e45c_5ba0c46e3e49e.thumb.jpg By Lara Pellegrinelli for The New York Times “You can have all the swirling harmony in the world,” the drummer Brian Blade said, “but only the cymbals can put you over the top of that mountain you’re trying to climb. The tension is the beauty of it, like riding a wave until you need it to crest.” Mr Blade, who is best known for playing with the country music singer Emmylou Harris and the jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter, said he thinks of his cymbals as an extension of himself, though he also gives credit for his distinctive sound to the instruments he plays: Zildjians. He has endorsed the brand for 20 years, just one in a long, diverse roster of musicians to do so. Zildjian was incorporated in the United States in 1929. But the company’s relationship with drummers, and drumming itself, dates back much further: 400 years to be precise, to 1618, when a secret casting process resulted in the creation of a new bronze alloy for the court of Sultan Osman II, the ruler of the Ottoman Empire. “My father always said that the name is bigger than any one person in the family,” said Craigie Zildjian, the company’s chief executive officer (the first woman to have the job), a member of the family’s 14th generation of cymbal makers. “In other words, you have this little piece of 400 years. Don’t screw it up.”

This would be a good place to share with us some of your family's stories of the Genocide. Being Armenian, all of us at least have a few stories that was past down through the years since 1915.. Please share them with us.

Well here goes mine... My mother's side was in Georgia, so nothing going on there... My Grandpa from my father's side lost his mom and dad, he is from aslambek. He escaped to Greece, when the Germans invaded Greece, gave it to Bulgaria, Greeks presecuted Armenians, my grandpa came to ASSR. Where he met my Grandma who was from Palestine... couple decades later, I am here writting this to you...

Armo...I've already told most of my stories of such in the past I think..perhaps I can dredge up a thread or two...but briefly my Grnadparents had very differnt experiences...my grandfather lost his entire family (at the age of 12) and became a Dashnak fighter...and long time Dashnak activist (though discouraged the rest of the family from such)...and my Grandmother was frpm a very wealthy family in Istanbul and was more or less protected...her parents however ran what might be termed an underground railroad that saved a great many (prominant and otherwise) Armenians from the Turks...they even had secret rooms in houses to hide people and such and arranged for transport out of Turkey....

Well to be honest I haven't heard many stories because my great-grandmother doesn't like to talk about it a lot, it makes her real sad...so it's hard for me to get into that conversation with her