Editor’s Note: The following piece is one in a series of short stories profiling performers in the 65th National Folk Festival Aug. 22-24 in Bangor.

Alan Shavarsh Bardezbanian and his Middle Eastern ensemble will be at the National Folk Festival spreading Armenian culture.

“We play a lot of Armenian but we’re going to be playing all kinds of Middle Eastern music – Armenian, Arabic, Turkish, Syrian and Greek,” said Bardezbanian, who is from Bath. “Our culture is part of a number of Middle Eastern cultures.”

Armenia is an ancient kingdom situated in Southwestern Asia, near Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Iran. Over the centuries, Armenia has been controlled by a variety of different empires and the music is a manifestation of this.

The Al Bardezbanian ensemble brings alive this historic culture. Both sets of Bardezbanian’s grandparents came to America a century ago. The family has succeeded in preserving their Armenian heritage through Bardezbanian’s love of a historical Armenian stringed instrument called the oud.

“It’s the ancestor of the lute and guitar,” he said. “We use a much more complex musical structure, which is standard for Middle Eastern music. Our scale has twice as many notes so we have 24 notes in the scale instead of 12.”

For this reason, the music will demonstrate a very diverse sound.

“We play a lot of music that’s very active, very alive,” Bardezbanian said. “We play folk and urban dance music with really interesting rhythms. The scales and rhythms are very different. We’re going to play a mix of pretty much a gamut of Armenian music.”

The band is composed of five other Maine musicians. Beth Borgerhoff plays accordion and Bau Graves joins in on guitar. Mike Gallant plays violin, David Hillian plays bass and Eric LaPerna is a percussionist.

– By Nok-Noi Hauger of the NEWS Staff

Alan Shavarsh Bardezbanian Middle Eastern Ensemble performs at 1 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 23, on the Heritage Stage.