Historical Portrait
Bedros Haroutunian playing kamanche, portrait, photograph
Archive record
Forms part of a group of field materials documenting Bedros Haroutunian performing Armenian and Armeno-Turkish music on the kamanche and the qanun on April 22, 1939, collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell in Fresno, California.
About this photograph
The archive record identifies this as a 1939 portrait of Bedros Haroutunian playing the kamanche, taken during a recording session in Fresno, California, on April 22. He performed Armenian and Armeno-Turkish music on both the kamanche and the qanun that day.
The photographer was Sidney Robertson Cowell, who directed the W.P.A. California Folk Music Project between 1938 and 1940. Cowell documented traditional musicians across Northern California's immigrant communities, which accounts for the project's range across Armenian, Icelandic, Italian, Portuguese, Mexican, Irish and Serbian traditions.
The photograph belongs to a group of field materials from that April session. Both the recordings and photographs from the project are now held by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.
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